St. Patricks Well

In low-lying grassland prone to flooding. The OS Letters note that by 1839 this well was ‘dried up’ (O’Flanagan 1927, Vol. 1, 499). All that survived when it was visited is a number of limestone blocks and rubble, obscured by overgrowth. Details from The Schools’ Collection (https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4583347/4581607, last accessed 20/12/2022) indicate that the site of the well was still visible and marked by a ‘round hollow’ roughly 3m in diameter and 1m deep in the 1930s. It was then already long disused and dried up, but there was still a local tradition that ‘cures were effected there’. Compiled by: Galway Archaeological Survey, UCG and Anne-Julie Lafaye Date of upload: 9 January 2023

St. Patrick’s Well is traditionally associated with the patron saint of Ireland, St. Patrick, and like many such wells, was likely used for holy water and seasonal rituals. The site's early 19th-century drying up and partial survival as rubble suggest a once-significant local pilgrimage or healing tradition, common in early Christian Ireland.