St Tooles Well

Located at the bottom of a N-facing slope and c. 300m ESE of Killary church (ME012-020----). This is annotated as ‘St Toole’s Well’ in gothic lettering on the 1836 and 1908 editions of the OS 6-inch map, and according to John O’Donovan in 1836 (Herity 2001, 46) it might have been more properly called ‘Tober Séacog (Séucog). Nothing else is known about it except that from the aerial imagery it would appear to be no longer extant. Another named well (ME012-047----) is c. 80m to the SSE. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 3 August 2022

St Toole’s Well is associated with a local Christian saint, St Toole, whose cult was once observed in parts of Ireland, particularly in the west. The well was likely used for holy water and seasonal rituals, and may have been a site of pilgrimage for cures, particularly of eye ailments, a common association with saintly wells.