Holy well, Cartown, Co. Limerick

Co. Limerick |

Holy Sites & Wells

Holy well, Cartown, Co. Limerick

A holy well whose water, according to local tradition, simply refuses to boil is already an unusual thing.

A man named Mr Nix, who once lived in Cartown, is said to have drawn water from this well to cook a leg of mutton, left it on the heat for hours, and eventually had to give up. That detail, quietly absurd, sits alongside more unsettling stories: a man who brought his blind horse to the well in mockery saw the animal cured and then struck dead, while he himself was left blind in its place. The well is dedicated to St Bridget, and these stories were recorded from schoolchildren at Ballynacarriga National School and collected as part of the Irish Folklore Commission's Schools' Collection in the 1930s, preserved today at duchas.ie. The fish said to live in the well, visible only to those who have just been cured, belongs to the same category of sign and consequence that runs through Irish holy well tradition more broadly.

The site as it stands today dates largely to 1920, when a concrete enclosing wall was built around the well, with niches set into its inner western face holding statues of St Bridget at the centre, flanked by the Virgin and Child and the Child of Prague. A date plaque from that year is still visible. The well itself sits beneath a metal-framed apex canopy and is reached through a narrow iron gate in the north wall. Caoimhín Ó Danachair, the folklorist and ethnologist, visited and documented the well in 1955, noting that rounds were still being made, particularly on the 1st of February, the feast of St Bridget, and on Saturdays. Making rounds, a devotional practice at Irish holy wells, involves walking a set circuit around the well a fixed number of times while reciting prayers; here, seven circuits with five Our Fathers, five Hail Marys, and Glorias at each. Ó Danachair also noted that rags and small religious objects were left as offerings, a practice with roots in pre-Christian votive tradition. It is worth noting that the 1840 Ordnance Survey map marks a St Bridget's Well roughly 400 yards north of the present site, suggesting the well may have been relocated or that this is a separate, later-established structure.

The well sits in pasture on the western bank of a stream, about sixteen metres southeast of the gate lodge for Cartown House. A large horse chestnut tree overhangs the enclosure from the southeast, giving the spot a sheltered, slightly enclosed quality. The site is on private farmland, so access should be approached with appropriate consideration. The 1st of February, St Bridget's Day, is the date most associated with pilgrimage here, though Saturdays have traditionally drawn visitors throughout the year. Once inside the enclosure, the statue niches, the canopy with its small cross, and the shallow step down into the well opening are all worth examining closely.

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