Tobernamasal, Kinturk Demesne, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Holy Sites & Wells
A well that disappears from official maps is unusual enough, but one whose local name translates roughly as the "well of the leaking hands" invites a particular kind of curiosity.
Tucked at the base of Kinturk Hill in County Westmeath, on the demesne lands surrounding Kinturk House, this modest flagstone-enclosed spring carries a name that suggests ritual or curative significance, even if the precise meaning of that significance has grown difficult to recover.
The well appears clearly on the 1838 edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map, recorded as "Tobernamasal", the tobar element being the Irish word for a well, frequently used to identify holy wells across the country. Holy wells, often associated with patron saints or pre-Christian water veneration, were typically gathering points for local devotion, sometimes on fixed feast days, and many were credited with healing properties for specific ailments. What makes this one quietly puzzling is its subsequent disappearance: later revised editions of the Ordnance Survey maps do not mark it at all, suggesting it either fell out of active use or simply ceased to register as a feature worth recording. The "leaking hands" name, preserved in local oral tradition as communicated by T. J. O'Meara, hints at a possible curative association with the hands, though the exact nature of the folklore surrounding it has not been formally documented beyond that detail.
