Bullaun stone, Hollywood, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Holy Sites & Wells
In the back garden of a private house in Hollywood, County Wicklow, there sits a large flat boulder that has been quietly collecting water in a single carved hollow for, most likely, many centuries.
The water stays. People still come. And the thing they come for, if local tradition is to be believed, is the removal of warts.
The stone is what is known as a bullaun, a type of early medieval or prehistoric rock feature found across Ireland, typically a fixed boulder into which one or more rounded depressions have been ground or worn. This particular example is earthfast, meaning it cannot be moved, and measures roughly 1.35 metres north to south and a metre across, rising just 25 centimetres above the ground. The single basin, set on the western side of the stone, is about 35 centimetres in diameter and half a metre deep, and it holds water. Locally, it goes by the name the wart stone, a designation that places it within a widespread Irish folk tradition attaching curative properties to bullaun water, particularly for skin complaints. What makes this one quietly remarkable is the note that it is still in use, suggesting that whatever combination of belief, habit, and community memory once animated it has not entirely dissolved into the past.
The stone sits around five metres south of a small stream, on relatively level ground. As it occupies a private garden, any visit would require the permission of the householder.