I’m back in the Gaeltacht having finished an intense but rewarding week on an Irish language immersion course in Baile an Fheirtéaraigh, Corca Dhuibhne; Ballyferriter, Dingle Peninsula. (There’ll be a lot of Irish in this blog, hopefully mainly spelled correctly, but it seems only right to give names in Irish first). The course was very […]
Schools' Folklore Project
St Senan’s Well, Tobershenane, near Listowel
We visited this well shortly after St Michael’s Well in Lixnaw- what a striking contrast! No huge statues, paved areas or painted energy points here, just an ambling walk down an old green track towards a small clump of trees, keeping a wary eye out for the bull! It hasn’t changed much since 1958 by […]
Tobar Mhíchíl, St Michael’s Well, Lixnaw
I suppose I must have visited nearly 400 holy wells over the last few years and some are still capable of surprise, none more so than this one in Lixnaw, North Kerry, dedicated to St Michael the Archangel: Tobar Mhíchíl. The Site The well is clearly signed off the R557 just before reaching the village […]
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 […]
Two wells on Valentia Island
A couple of days staying on Valentia Island. The weather roared and howled around us with a complex mixture of snow and sleet, gales and glorious sunshine. Our comfy base was the Royal Hotel Valentia – a roaring fire and excellent food welcoming us after each hard day’s well hunt. Valentia is a remarkable place […]
St Fursey & the Holy Mountain
It’s been three years since I started this project to visit every holy well in County Cork and record what I found. I have visited approximately 300 wells and apart from a couple, think that the remaining 50 can mainly be classified as no visible trace. I have changed the introduction to the website and […]