Holy well, Scart, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Holy Sites & Wells
A holy well that holds no water is already a paradox, and the one known as Tobermullacash, set in woodland on a gentle south-eastward slope in County Tipperary, leans further into its strangeness with every detail.
The circular dry-stone well, roughly a metre and a third across, sits on a natural rise with a stone-lined channel running eighteen metres down towards a river. A roughly dressed stone cross, carved from a single piece of stone, stands at the north-western edge of the wall, and a small drain is set into the south-eastern quadrant, presumably for those moments when the well does hold water. Some metres away, a crudely built cairn altar rests against a tree, its surface crowded with devotional objects in various states of decay: a broken statue of Our Lady, a St. Christopher figure carrying the Christ child, a porcelain group of two angels at the foot of a cross with a skull at its base, an unidentifiable chalk figure worn almost smooth, a possible candle holder, and an empty glass jar. From a branch above hangs a plaque depicting the apparition at Knock and Padre Pio, with the words "Bless Our Home" on a wooden backing. An oval horseshoe and an empty picture hook complete the assembly. Around the altar, small circles of loose stones, apparently of recent construction, have been laid on the ground.
The Irish name Tobar Mullaigh Cearta translates as "Well of the Mount of Suffering," a direct reference to Calvary, and the site is recorded under the alternative name "Easter Well" as far back as Power's 1908 account. The connection to Easter is not merely etymological. A local woman recalled that some of the older women in the area still visited the well on Easter Sunday, carrying on a tradition of pattern devotion, the Irish custom of visiting holy wells on a saint's feast day or other significant date, sometimes walking a prescribed circuit of prayers around the site. Here the date is Easter rather than a saint's day, and the name ties the well to the Passion rather than to any individual intercessor, which is comparatively unusual in the Irish holy well tradition.