Holy well, Tobertown, Co. Dublin

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Holy Sites & Wells

Holy well, Tobertown, Co. Dublin

At the southern end of Balscaddan graveyard in County Dublin, a stone funnel set in concrete descends five or six granite steps to what was once St Mary's holy well.

The well is dry now, its base filled with stone and debris, a metal grille inserted where water once pooled. It is an odd thing to find in the middle of a burial ground: a formerly venerated spring, tidied up and sealed off, its curative reputation outlasting the water itself.

The well's folklore was recorded in 1934 by pupils at Balscadden National School, as part of the Irish Folklore Commission's Schools' Collection, a nationwide project that gathered local traditions through schoolchildren and their communities. The accounts are specific and matter-of-fact. The water was never drunk; it was rubbed over sore eyes, and often carried away for later use. The depth of the well, the children noted, never varied regardless of the season. A whitethorn, the tree most associated in Irish tradition with sacred or liminal places, once stood over it, with rags and pieces of cloth tied to its branches, a practice known across many Irish holy wells as a way of leaving a petition or giving thanks for a cure. By 1934 that custom had ceased, though the tree itself was still remembered. A pattern day, the local term for an annual gathering at a holy well combining prayer, pilgrimage, and social occasion, was held on the 15th of August, the feast of the Assumption, and the 1934 account notes that people came from beyond the immediate area. The same collection recorded a grimmer piece of folk medicine: a cure for toothache required a person to pull a tooth from a skull in the graveyard using their own teeth, then carry it always. A second account, gathered from Balrothery School, described the well's water being used to wash an aching jaw, with a rag afterwards tied to an overhanging branch. By 1958, when the folklorist Caoimhín Ó Danachair documented it, the well was still described as venerated, enclosed by masonry, with stone steps leading down. Paddy Healy, writing in 1975, noted the masonry remained but the white bush was gone.

The well sits roughly twenty metres south-south-west of the ruins of a medieval church, which local tradition in 1934 held had been blown up by Cromwell on his march towards Drogheda. The graveyard is still in use, and the church ruins and well are recorded as separate archaeological monuments. The well's concrete surround and grille are recent interventions, and the structure looks more maintained than meaningful at present. The 15th of August remains the historical pattern day, and the graveyard, according to the 1934 accounts, was traditionally visited on that date to dress graves as well as gather at the well.

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