School: Irishtown
- Location:
- Milltown, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: Margaret McNally
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0742, Page 195
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Irishtown
- XML Page 195
- XML “Folklore - The Holy Well”
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
- Folklore Holy Well
Holy Well
I know of one holy well in my homeland. It is in a field near my home.
Some time ago people used to visit this well and there used to be certain prayers said and they had to go round it three times.
How this well was made is. One time a man was burying a calf and he came to a spring and then he said he would not buy it there. This man cleaned the water as it would never boil.
Saint Brigid is said to have visited and dropped a cross into it. The cross was taken out of the well and left on a stone as it is in the cross the cure is.
This well is a cure for rheumatism. The person must dip the cross in the water and rub it on the affected part and immediately he is cured.
The only relic that is there is the cross and it is left on a large stone that is beside the well. The cross has sunken into the stone now and grass is growing on and around it. Even now the people(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Phyllis Reilly
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 13
- Address
- Irishtown, Co. Westmeath
- Informant
- James Ward
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 48
- Address
- Ballintue, Co. Westmeath
