Sundays Well, Dromhale, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Holy Sites & Wells
Some holy wells in Ireland attract pilgrims, folklore collectors, and curious visitors in roughly equal measure.
This one, on the south side of Countess Road in Killarney, attracts none of them, because there is nothing left to find. A house built in the 1980s now occupies the site, and no visible trace of the well survives above ground.
Holy wells, typically natural springs or water sources associated with a local saint or patron feast day, were once scattered across the Irish landscape in considerable numbers. Many became focal points for patterns, the local gatherings of prayer and communal ceremony that gave such sites their social as well as devotional significance. The name Sundays Well suggests a place where such a pattern may once have been observed, most likely on a particular Sunday in the liturgical calendar. Whether the well at Dromhale ever drew large gatherings, or whether it was always a quieter, more local affair, is not recorded. What is clear is that the site did not survive the twentieth century intact, lost not to time in the gradual sense but to a fairly specific moment of suburban development.
