School: Edenderry (St Mary's Convent)
- Location:
- Edenderry, Co. Offaly
- Teacher: Sr M. Laserian
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0801, Page 127
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- 127
St Colman's Well
This well is situated about six miles from Daingean, in the village of Clonfert. It was blessed by St Coleman centuries ago. It was a place to which crowds were attracted on the 15th of August where a pattern was held.
There was an old tradition that it was necessary to have it cleaned out very early in the morning of the 15th of August before any got a drink out of it. At one time it was not cleaned out, so, for nights at a time a priest was seen praying beside it.
The priest called everyone who passed but no one went near him. One night a man named Mangan was passing, hearing the priests call went over and saw that he was about to say Mass. The priest asked him to serve Mass, and he did so.
When Mass was finished, the priest told that at day break every 15th August he should clean the well and then wash his feet in it. (He) and when he died, his son should carry on the work.
At that moment the priest disappeared and Mangan went home with a light(continues on next page)
