School: Niall Mór (roll number 11843)

Location:
Na Cealla Beaga, Co. Dhún na nGall
Teacher:
B. Mac Niallghuis
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1039, Page 290

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1039, Page 290

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

See copyright details.

Download

Open data

Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  1. XML School: Niall Mór
  2. XML Page 290
  3. XML “Saint Catherine's 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

  1. Saint Catherine's Well;- Among the many famous holy wells in Ireland is St. Catherine's in Killybegs. It is situated about half a mile from the town.
    It is a large spring well with a stone wall around it. On November 25th the feast of St. Catherine, numbers from all parts of Donegal assemble there to pray for themselves, sick people etc. The following tells of how the well originated.
    Long ago some Spanish sailors were out at sea. A fierce storm having arose they despaired of ever reaching dry land safely. They earnestly to St. Catherine promising her if they landed alive on shore wheresoever it would be they would build a well in her honour. They landed in Killybegs and fulfilled their promise. The minister who lived near became aware that a holy well was opened in his territory and flew into a rage. He immediately ordered it to be filled in. This being done he felt contented and retired for the night. Next morning going into his parlour he stared to see it filled with water. After considering how it came he came to the conclusion
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Kathleen Mc Cahill
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Na Cealla Beaga, Co. Dhún na nGall
    Informant
    Mrs C. Mc Cahill
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Na Cealla Beaga, Co. Dhún na nGall