Holy well, Toberbunny, Co. Dublin

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Holy Sites & Wells

Holy well, Toberbunny, Co. Dublin

Somewhere between the flight paths of Dublin Airport and the fairways of a golf course, there is a pool of water that was once believed to have turned into milk.

The well known as Toberbunny, or Tobar Bainne in Irish, sits close to Cuckoo Stream behind Toberbunny Lodge to the east of the airport. It is unenclosed, unremarkable to look at, and no longer venerated. What it once meant to the people who lived nearby is another matter entirely.

The Irish name Tobar Bainne translates simply as "well of milk," and the folklore collected from St Pappan's School in Ballymun explains why. Recorded as part of the Irish Folklore Commission's Schools' Collection in the 1930s, the account describes a poor widow living on Tubberbunny Lane, between the townlands of Collinstown and Cloghran, whose children had fallen ill with fever. Unable to get milk from anyone nearby, she confided in a priest, who told her not to worry, that God would provide. The following morning she went to draw water from the well and found it had been replaced with milk, which remained there until her children recovered. The well's name preserves that story directly. Beyond the legend, Ó Danachair noted in 1958 that it was regarded as a station well in earlier times, meaning it would have been visited as part of a pattern of ritual prayer, walking, and devotion, a practice once common at holy wells across Ireland. That tradition has long since lapsed here.

The well sits within a golf course today, which makes casual access unlikely without some prior knowledge of the ground. It is an unenclosed pool rather than a dressed or walled structure, so there is nothing to signal its former significance from a distance. The area between Cloghran and Collinstown retains little of its older character given the proximity of the airport, and Tubberbunny Lane itself is easy to miss. Those with a particular interest in the folklore record can read the original schoolchildren's account through the Dúchas Schools' Collection online, where it appears in Volume 0792, pages 304 to 305, submitted by pupils who were still close enough to the tradition to have heard it told.

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