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 […]
pilgrimage
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 […]
Views, folklore & a lot of green: St Patrick’s Well, Knockpatrick, Limerick
Close to the sea-drenched well at Barrigone is another well, a very different one, this one 572m above sea level and one of several interconnected monuments. St Patrick’s Well, Knockpatrick The site is gated but clearly signed and there is public access. We decided to go to the summit first and and followed the roughly […]
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 more ladies met 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 […]
Three fields, three wells, three lads: exploring around Rathkeale
Astonishingly the sun shone and the rain desisted on our big day out in the wilds of County Limerick, nine holy wells on the agenda! These three were all adrift in fields, all had male saints yet each was very different. St James’ Well, Ardgoul South St James’ Well was tricky to find and I […]