Holy well, St. Edmonds, Co. Wexford

Co. Wexford |

Holy Sites & Wells

Holy well, St. Edmonds, Co. Wexford

In a small wooded valley in Co. Wexford, a holy well sits backfilled and unrecognisable, its water hidden beneath the ground.

What makes this particular site linger in the memory is not the well itself, which is effectively gone, but the object that once kept it company: a Gothic wooden statue, roughly 66 centimetres tall, depicting a bishop. Found in the 19th century at the well's edge, it drew pilgrims and curiosity alike, and then, around 1980, it was stolen. It has not been seen since.

The well was dedicated to St Maol Ruain, a figure of considerable weight in early Irish Christianity. In 774 he founded the monastery of Tallaght, just outside Dublin, and became one of the principal figures in the Céli Dé movement, a reform current within the Irish church that emphasised ascetic discipline and scholarly rigour. He died in 792, and his feast day fell on the 7th of July, a date that was observed at this Wexford well with what appear to have been local celebrations. The wooden statue associated with the site was Gothic in style, suggesting it was carved considerably later than Maol Ruain's own era, though its presence at the well gave it a devotional gravity that attracted folk belief. Stories circulated, recorded as early as 1920 by Ranson, that the statue had a habit of returning to the area whenever it was removed. Those stories were eventually tested: the theft around 1980 proved permanent.

The well lies in a north-south wooded valley, described locally as sitting on the western bank of a small stream, about ten metres from the water and roughly fifty metres south of the road. There is nothing to see now. The well has been backfilled and leaves no visible trace, and archaeological testing carried out about a hundred metres to the west by Y. Whitty produced no related material. The place survives mainly as a coordinate and a story about something missing.

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