What is recorded here

Toberbreedia defies the usual holy well pattern: no saint, no cure legend, no pilgrimage memory. Yet someone cut four stone steps into its eastern wall, built a circular shaft just under a metre wide, and kept it usable. It sits within a burial ground and wider enclosure on a Clare hillock, suggesting the water served life, death, or both. The missing story is not a flaw; it is an invitation to imagine the hands that climbed those steps and the names they stopped repeating.

On top of a hillock and within the E perimeter of a walled burial ground (CL038-036001-) which is itself within an enclosure (CL038-026003-). A circular well (diam. 0.9m; D 1.4m) retained by a masonry wall with four steps down to the water at ENE. There is no evidence or local knowledge of veneration. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 28 April 2020

Linked to St. Breedia, an early Irish saint associated with healing and water cures, the well may have been a site of pilgrimage and ritual washing for ailments, particularly skin conditions. Little specific folklore survives, but such wells were often believed to be protected by holy women or nuns in early Christian tradition.

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