What is recorded here

Tobergowna, the Well of the Calf, sleeps buried beneath pasture in County Longford after cultivation choked its sacred water. Farrell Linchy, nearly one hundred years old when asked, remembered it as a place of great sanctity where people once gathered before progress forgot the ritual. The stone circle still stands, but the water is gone, leaving only the name to hint at the calf that gave the lake its life.

In pasture. This spring well is within a relatively modern stone setting. In 1837 O’Donovan recorded that this well retained ‘a name of the most remote antiquity, namely Tober Gamhna, or the Well of the Calf. It was said to be the source of Lough Gowna. According to a local man, Farrell Linchy who was almost 100 years old, it was ‘a well of great sanctity’ in the old days but it was ‘stopped up some years ago by the hand of cultivation (OSL, 4-5). No longer in use. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 7 June 2013

to have been the site where St. Gamhna, a local early Christian saint, performed a miracle involving a calf, which led to the well’s reputation for healing livestock. The name and tradition reflect a blend of pre-Christian and Christian elements, common in many Irish holy wells.

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