Toberintaggart, Ballintobeenig, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Holy Sites & Wells
Some places are remarkable precisely because they have vanished, leaving only a name.
In the townland of Ballintobeenig in County Kerry, there was once a holy well known as Tobber na Saggart, meaning the priest's well. Holy wells were, and in many cases still are, sites of popular devotion in Ireland, typically associated with a local saint or a tradition of pattern days, where communities gathered to pray, perform ritual circuits, and leave offerings. This one, however, has left almost nothing behind, not in the landscape and not in living memory.
The well was noted by Hickson in 1885 to 1886, who recorded its name and location on the townland but offered little else. By 1958, the folklorist Caoimhín Ó Danachair was already uncertain about it, writing that no tradition seemed to have survived. That quiet observation carries some weight. For a holy well to lose its associated lore entirely is unusual; these sites tend to accumulate stories, cures, and cautionary tales across generations. Whatever history or devotion Tobber na Saggart once held, it had already slipped away before the twentieth century was half done. Today there are no surface remains visible at all.