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What nobody tells you

Holy wells: the oldest free day out in Ireland

People were walking to holy wells for a thousand years before anybody in Ireland sold a ticket to anything. There are thousands of them, and most are a short drive from your door.

By Rickie · Discover Alone
The Holy Well at Wolsingham. They're like this all over Ireland and Britain: small, quiet, and nobody there. Picture: geograph.org.uk, CC BY-SA 2.0

Before there were attractions

Long before tourist boards and car parks, the day out was a walk to the well. On the saint's day whole parishes would go.

People came for cures, for luck, to pray, or just because everyone else was going.

They're still there

Thousands of them. In hedges, at the side of roads, in the corner of fields, behind churches. Some still have rags tied to the tree beside them. Some have a cup on a chain.

Most have no sign at all.

Why go

Because it's quiet. Because it's free. Because you're standing where people stood for a thousand years, for reasons that mattered to them.

Bring the kids, bring your granny, bring a flask. Nobody will be selling you anything.

Find the nearest one

Open the map where you live. There's very likely a holy well within a few miles of you that you've never heard of.

Go and see it. And if you know one that isn't on the map, tell me.

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