I’m just back from an excellent long weekend at the inaugural Skellig Coast Archaeology Festival. The weather was atrocious and many events were outside but we were a hardy lot and sallied forth anyway – and there were wells! St Crohane’s Well, Tobar Chrócháin One of the highlights of the programme for me was a […]
hermitage
An Turas: in the footsteps of St Crohane
Tobar an Bhile, St Crohane’s Well near Castle Cove on the Ring of Kerry was the well that originally sparked my interest in Irish holy wells. Way back on the 30th July 1998 (I remember the date exactly as it was my son’s 18th birthday) I left our holiday home in the lashing rain to […]
Piety, Pleasure & Miraculous Tussocks: Killmackillogue
This sounded an intriguing place – a holy well that in fact might be a lake but which may no longer be there, remembered for its miraculous floating tussocks! We set out to investigate, heading to a remote coastal tip of the Beara Peninsula – Bunaw/Kilmackilloge, just off the R574 from Kenmare to Lauragh. The […]
Tobar an Bhile & a lot of Serendipity
Many years ago, and I’m talking about the late 1990s, we came for a family holiday in Kerry, staying in a cottage on the old butter road high on the slopes above Coad Mountain not far from Caherdaniel. Whilst in the local shop, I saw a notice about a pattern day at a holy well […]
St Declan’s Well, Ardmore
I’m just back from an excellent two day conference on Holy Wells, An Tobar, in Waterford. It’s always good to meet like minded fellow enthusiasts and it was a very cosmopolitan and interesting gathering. Congratulations to the two organisers, Celeste Ray and Shane Lordan, for such a well organised and comprehensive conference. After all the […]