What is recorded here

Toberreendoney, the Well of the King of Sunday, was a small clear spring under an old thorn tree where devotion almost died before the County Council buried it under a rubbish dump. What is lost is not the water but the witness: the thorn, the Sunday king, the people who came clean and leaving changed. A dump can cover a well, but it cannot stop the well from working inside the person who remembers it.

No visible surface trace of well which, according to local information, was not encased but simply a spring in the ground. According to OSL (vol. 2, 12) called 'Tobar Ri(fada)gh an Domhnaigh (Well of the King of Sunday)'. Site now occupied by County Council rubbish dump. Described by Ó Danachair (1955, 214) as 'a small clear spring, overhung by an old thorn tree … the devotion has almost died out.' See attached photos taken in 1954 by Caoimhín Ó Danachair, courtesy of and © National Folklore Collection, UCD. The Photographic Collection, F025.21.00223 accessible online at www.duchas.ie/en/cbeg/31108; F025.21.00220 accessible online at www.duchas.ie/en/cbeg/17005 and F025.21.00218 accessible online at www.duchas.ie/en/cbeg/17004. Compiled by: Denis Power Revised by: Caimin O'Brien Date of revised upload: 30 September 2020

Linked to Saint Domhnall (the King of Sunday), the well was traditionally associated with healing and pilgrimage, particularly on Sundays. The name suggests a local Christian tradition blending saint veneration with the sacredness of the Sunday as a day of worship.

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