I’m just back from a week in Buxton, England having attended the excellent Sacred Waters Conference organised by Sewanee Liberal Arts College, Tennessee and Durham University, England. It was well attended with speakers and participants from America, England, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Ibiza, Scotland, Finland, Portugal, Sweden, Netherlands, India, Nigeria and Wales. It […]
BVM
The curious, the scenic and the challenging – a 2023 round up
It’s been a busy year for holy well work and the main excitement was the publication of my book Holy Wells of County Cork. This was kindly launched by Gary Branigan, author of Ancient and Holy Wells of Dublin and was hosted by the Working Artist Studios, Ballydehob. The book of course took much longer […]
In Praise of Well Keepers
I am in the early stages of collaborating on an art project focusing on holy wells. Marie Brett is leading the project and approached me with inquiries about locating possible holy wells. After a lot of difficulty I narrowed it down to four wells, two in North Cork and two in North Kerry, all visited […]
Summer meanderings
In between all the excitement of the book finally being let loose into the world, I have had time to visit a few, mainly local, wells, which had so far escaped detection; and caught up with a few old favourites. Ballybane Holy Well In June Thomas Wiegandt Invited me to inspect his well in Ballybane […]
Barrigone: an estuary well
An unusual well in County Limerick on the agenda today, one literally in an estuary. Barrigone Well, St Jude’s Well, Craggs I have long been intrigued by this well having seen images of it waterlogged, like a small ship afloat. It’s situated on the Robertstown River estuary which flows out to join the mighty Shannon […]
Enticed by old photographs: three ladies encountered around Adare
The National Folklore Photographic Collection, available online at duchas.ie, is an invaluable source with a wide ranging variety of images including holy wells. County Limerick seems especially well documented and each of the three wells covered in this blog initially enticed me with their beautiful black and white photographs. I had high hopes for each […]