A brief encounter …

… But what an enjoyable one. I’m in Kerry collecting Himself who has just completed the Sli Chorca Dhuibhne – excellent walking though the weather was sometimes a little challenging. Whilst he finishes some drawings I go off to explore for I know there’s a well in the townland in which we’re staying near Ceann tra (Ventry).

St Michael’s Well, Tobar Mhíchíl Naomhtha

It’s a treacherous walk along a surprisingly busy road with no pavements but the sight of a jaunty blue wall suggests something exciting lies ahead!

It does. The wall is actually a parapet of a small bridge and on top is a stone with an inscribed Latin cross on each side, now painted. The stone was considered significant enough to be marked on the 25 inch historic map. Behind lies the well, a simple rectangle with a skinny V shaped opening leading down to the water. It is  also freshly painted in sky blue pinks, a combination I have not seen before.

I am just examining it when I am greeted as Gaeilge: Conas atá tú? Of course this is the Gaeltacht and although we have been shyly using a few dia dhuits and sláns and go raibh maith agats this throws me completely. I manage to mumble tá mé go maith, go raibh maith agat but of course he in turn replies. gconai is heard but I can’t remember what to say next though I have learnt the correct response (sorry Finola). I having been attempting to learn Irish over the last few months but there have been some serious lapses over the Summer. The rest of the conversation is conducted in English.

Caoimhin is delightful and a mine of information. He is also the keeper of the well and is busy  putting up a bench where pilgrims can rest and contemplate. He has a few stories to tell. Not so long ago the lads had inadvertently driven into the well. The car remained wedged for a good few days, rather embarrassingly right opposite where the garda lived. Later, and I suspect carefully overseen by Caoimhin, the well was rebuilt by the miscreants and now Caoimhin is generally tidying up the place.

I’ve managed to find some old photographs of the well in the Folklore Photographic Collection dating from 1947. Quite a difference to today.

The well is dedicated to St Michael but Caoimhin thinks the original dedication was to the Celtic goddess Mór, who has strong associations with this area. The townland is even called Baile Mór Thiar after her. Mór was eventually superseded by the masculine as Christian saints such as Michael and Brendan took hold but the feminine is carefully remembered in the choice of paint colours, reflecting the colours of Our Lady’s Mantle. The feast day is the 29th September when pilgrims traditionally visited to pay the rounds. Nine circuits of the well and the bridge were required, the pilgrim gathering nine small stones – releasing one by the well each time a round was completed. Offerings such as pins, coins and medals were left on the bridge and rags and ribbons tied in the nearby tree.The pilgrimage has died out but Caoimhin is hoping that it might be revived. There are still a few rags to be seen in the tree behind the well.

Stepping down into the well, the water is fresh and clear.

It is said to hold a cure for toothache, warts and back ailments and it was traditional to drink the water or even wash your feet in it. Bottles could also be taken back to those too sick to make the journey. I also read a comment on a blog that the water was good for baldness!  The water will of course never boil and an eel was said to live within.  In Crossing the Circle at the Holy Wells by Walter L Brenneman and Mary G Brenneman, they describe the following:

Here a small eel dwells in the well. According to one source who saw the eel, it is about four inches long and is coloured a greenish brown. Two other sources told our investigator that the eel had been taken from the well in a bucket of water and that the water would not boil. When the eel was returned to the well and another bucket of water was taken, it boiled.

I’m surprised the water boiled at all though Caoimhin Ó Danachair in his paper Holy Wells of Corkaguiney noted that the water was used for domestic purposes – very unusually.

A special healing service still seems to be held annually on the 17th June where the sick are anointed and blessings given to their carers.

I remarked on the rather delicate cross shaped water plant growing with in it.

Caoimhin refers to it as Sweeney’s watercress and tells me some of the amazing story behind the Buile Suibhne or the Madness of Sweeney, an ancient Irish tale. To cut a very long, but fascinating story, short, Suibhne mac Colmain was probably a pagan king of Dál nAraidi in Ulster whose people had originated from Scotland. Their territory was situated east of Lough Neagh in Counties Antrim and Down in Northern Ireland. They are supposed to have been the earliest inhabitants of Ireland and were reputed to have settled here before the Fir Bolg. They practised divination and were said to fly and could call like birds.

The story goes that St Ronan arrived in the area and decided to build a church. He was marking out the boundaries when Suibhne heard his bell ringing and was enraged, determined to evict the saint from his land. His wife Eorann tried to stop him and grabbed his cloak, unfortunately this unravelled leaving Suibhne not only enraged but naked. On encountering what must have been a rather alarming sight, St Ronan then had his psalter snatched from his hand and thrown into a nearby lake. Suibhne then tried to drag the saint away but  was interrupted by a messenger who asked for some help in the Battle of Mag Rath which was going on nearby, to which Suibhne agreed.

The psalter was returned to the saint by an otter the next day but he was not in a forgiving mood. He cursed Suibhne condemning him to fly around the world naked and to eventually die at the point of a spear.

Suibhne did not repent and in a later incident threw his spear at the saint, piercing his bell. St Ronan reconfirmed his curse, condemning Suibhne to wander like a bird and to meet his death by spear. Meanwhile the battle was still raging around them and the tremendous noise drove Suibhne insane – birdlike he levitated into the air, he may even have grown feathers and wings. He then wandered around Ireland and Britain for seven years, his kinsman keeping an eye on him and even trying, unsuccessfully, to capture him and take him back with them.  Eventually Suibhne arrived at Teach Mullin where St Moling took him in and looked after him. St Moling employed a local woman to provide Suibhne with a daily meal in the form of milk. Every day she made a hole in some cow dung with her foot and poured the milk into it. Her husband, St Moling’s herder, believed the two were having an affair and in a fit of jealousy, thrust a spear into Suibhne while he was drinking from the hole. Thus Suibhne died in the manner prescribed by Ronan, having received his sacrament from Moling. He is said to be buried within one of the churches at St Mullins.

Oh – and the connection with the watercress, this was Suibhne’s main source of food whilst water from the wells provided his drink:

Because Mad Sweeney was a pilgrim
to the lip of every well
and every green-banked, cress-topped stream,
their water’s his memorial. (Sweeney Astray)

Maybe he even stopped at this well because I’ve just discovered a strange thing, the 17th June, when the healing service is held, is St Moling’s feast day.

What an extraordinary story, an allegory on many levels: pagan v christianity, the outsider v the established. Seamus Heaney translated the original story from the Irish in his long poem Sweeney Astray. In his introduction he says

 … insofar as Sweeney is also a figure of the artist, displaced, guilty, assuaging himself by his utterance, it is possible to read the work as an aspect of the quarrel between free creative imagination and the constraints of religious, political, and domestic obligation…

As Caoimhin and I say our goodbyes, there’s one further odd connection. He draws my attention to the plaque on the wall of the bridge.

It is in remembrance of Canon James Goodman who lived in the townland. He was a famous piper and collector of traditional music and each year in Skibbereen, in my part of the world, there is a concert dedicated to him. This year we had the huge pleasure of hearing Lunasa play with their special guest Natalie Merchant.

All this from a chance encounter at a well!

The location of the well can be found in the Gazetteer.

Sincere thanks to Caoimhin for all the fascinating information.