Saint Catherine's Well, Gorteenminoge, Co. Wexford
Co. Wexford |
Holy Sites & Wells
There is something quietly puzzling about a holy well that cannot be seen.
Saint Catherine's Well in Gorteenminoge, County Wexford, sits somewhere in a level, low-lying stretch of ground, with a small north-to-south stream running roughly twenty metres to the east, and yet it offers nothing visible at the surface. No stone surround, no votive offerings draped over a bush, no obvious depression in the grass. It is simply there, or rather, it is there if you know where to look.
The well appears on the Ordnance Survey six-inch maps of both 1839 and 1925, named in the gothic lettering that cartographers traditionally reserved for antiquities and features of cultural or spiritual significance. Interestingly, the 1839 map places it within the townland of Murntown Lower, while by 1925 it falls under Gorteenminoge, suggesting either a boundary shift or a quiet administrative reclassification over the intervening decades. Holy wells dedicated to Saint Catherine are found across Ireland, typically associated with local patterns, the popular devotional gatherings held on a saint's feast day, though no such detail survives in what is recorded here. The well's persistence across nearly a century of mapping, despite leaving no trace above ground, is itself a small curiosity.