What is recorded here

Tobernagommaun is a forgotten holy well in Curraghakimikeen, County Limerick, where even the reason for its abandonment has vanished from local memory. A modest spring sits beside a hawthorn bush in a quiet valley, marked only by the lie of the ground and the tree’s ancient association with sacred boundaries. What makes it striking is not grandeur but absence: no garlands, no pattern days, no surviving story to explain why people stopped coming. It remains a liminal place, half-remembered through maps and half-lost to time.

Ó Danachair (1955, 205) recorded the following details about this holy well; ‘Tobernagommaun on 1840 map. "This well is placed in a valley. It is a spring and has a hawthorn bush near it. It was, it is said, a holy well anciently, the cause of its discontinuation is not known" OSNB. No tradition survives'. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 01 July 2019

associated with Saint Gobnait, a 6th-century Irish saint known for her patronage of bees and healing. The well was traditionally visited for its supposed curative properties, particularly for ailments of the eyes and skin, and the nearby hawthorn bush may have been considered sacred or symbolic in local folklore.

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