Holy well, Stonehall, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Holy Sites & Wells
Tucked into scrub on a west-facing slope in County Limerick, this holy well is still doing two jobs at once: serving as a site of religious devotion and, by way of a modern pipe running from the well chamber, filling a cattle trough a few metres to the south.
The combination is less incongruous than it might sound. Sacred springs in Ireland have always been entangled with the practical rhythms of rural life, and the sight of a stone arch sheltering a statue of St. Brigid above a well that also waters livestock captures that overlap rather neatly.
The well sits at the centre of an ovoid enclosure, roughly nine metres east to west and seven metres north to south, bounded by a wall standing about 1.25 metres high with a gateway opening on the west side. Above the well's stone arch, a gabled niche contains a statue of St. Brigid, the fifth-century abbess whose feast day on the 1st of February, traditionally marking the start of spring, is still the occasion most associated with this site. The folklorist Caoimhín Ó Danachair recorded in 1955 that rounds, the customary ritual circuits made around a holy well while praying, were performed here often, with the date of Brigid's feast being particularly observed. He also noted the local belief that the water could cure sore eyes and other ailments. A photograph Ó Danachair took at the site in 1954 survives in the National Folklore Collection at UCD and can be viewed through the Dúchas archive online, offering a sense of how little the essential character of the place has changed in the intervening decades.
The well is set into a slope, with steps leading south and a gravel path looping back around to the north, so there is a clear circuit to follow if you want to walk the rounds as they have traditionally been done. To the west of the enclosure, bushes carry rags tied to their branches, a practice common at Irish holy wells where cloth, sometimes called clooties, is left as a votive offering, often in connection with healing. The 1st of February remains the most meaningful time to visit if you want to see the site in the context of its living tradition, though the enclosure and its stonework can be read quietly at any time of year.
