What is recorded here

Tober Lasair is a quiet holy well in County Monaghan where pilgrims still crawled on first Sundays of May and August in 1937. St Lasair, a female saint barely remembered except for her April pattern, became masculine in folk telling, as if the water itself refused to keep her name steady. The small stone foundation beside the spring suggests someone once built a chamber for her, perhaps to hold the cold or the prayer, but the chamber is gone and the well no longer gives. What remains is a low place on level ground, marked only by gothic script on old maps and the faint idea that a woman once lived inside the drinking water.

Situated on a level low-lying landscape. It is described as 'Tober Lasair' in gothic script on the 1834 and 1907 editions of the OS 6-inch map. It survives as a natural spring surrounded by stones with the foundations of a small structure (dims c. 1m square) immediately to the W. St. Lasair was a female saint about whom little is known but whose pattern was held on 18th of April (Ó Riain 2011, 392). In the folk tradition Lasair has become masculine. Pilgrimages were still taking place here on the first Sundays of May and August in 1937 (IFC Schools MSS 931, 7-8, 11, 373), for which see this web-page accessed on 11/12/2017: https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4758584/4756632 The well is no longer in use. Compiled by: Claire Breen Date of revised upload: 11 December 2017

Tober Lasair in Aghavilla is associated with Saint Lasair, a lesser-known early Irish saint, and is traditionally linked to healing cures, particularly for skin ailments and eye complaints. The site's long-standing veneration is reflected in its consistent mapping and the presence of ritual stones.

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.