Toberinneenboy, Croaghaun, Co. Clare
Co. Clare |
Holy Sites & Wells
On a north-east-facing slope in Croaghaun, Co. Clare, a small well sits tucked into a fold in the land beside a laneway, easy to miss and yet clearly tended with some care.
What makes Toberinneenboy quietly arresting is the contrast between its ancient form and its more recent additions: a drystone chamber built to last, sitting alongside a concrete and glass shrine that belongs firmly to the twentieth century.
The well itself is a compact, rectangular structure, roughly 1.1 metres square, built in the drystone method, meaning the stones are laid without mortar, relying on careful placement and weight to hold their shape. Two lintels span the top, and an opening of about 0.6 metres square faces north-east, towards the slope's natural aspect. Just to the north, a rendered concrete and glass structure approximately two metres tall houses statuary, with a wall built around it to allow a circuit on foot. This kind of ambulatory arrangement is characteristic of holy well sites across Ireland, where walking a prescribed path around the well or its associated features forms part of a pattern day, a local tradition of prayer and ritual visiting. Cemented onto the top of this wall is the base of a finial cross, a cross whose upper shaft has been lost, leaving only the footing as a marker of something once taller and more emphatic.
The well lies on the west side of the laneway, set into the slight depression that often gathers both water and significance in the Irish landscape. The passage around the statuary structure suggests the site remains in active devotional use, or at least retains the physical arrangement for it.