A Mountain Well for Lughnasa

Some wells are more challenging than others. Tobar Bréanainn, St Brendan’s Well, on the  summit of Cnoc Bréanainn, Mount Brandon, has to be one of the most dramatically positioned holy wells and one of the most fiendishly difficult I’ve ever attempted to get to. But it had to be done, and on the correct day, for it is a Lughnasa site, traditionally visited on the last Sunday in July.

Cnoc Bréanainn & Lughnasa

The south west tip of Corca Dhuibhne, the Dingle Peninsula, is dominated by Mount Brandon, its austere peak usually capped in tumbling grey clouds. Mount Brandon is, depending on which source you read, either the 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 8th or 9th highest mountain in Ireland. It’s certainly big, standing at 953 m. It is also a holy mountain and has been revered for literally thousands of years. Here it is looking fairly benign, viewed from Ferriter’s Cove.

It was originally known as Sliabh nDaidche and was one of three mountain sites, along with  Croagh Patrick and Slieve Donard, traditionally climbed at the start of the great Celtic harvest festival of Lughnasa (spelled in an astonishing variety of ways) which heralded in Autumn :

In Irish mythology, the Lughnasadh festival is said to have been begun by the god Lugh (Lú) as a funeral feast and athletic competition in commemoration of his mother (or foster-mother) Tailtiu. She was said to have died of exhaustion after clearing the plains of Ireland for agriculture … Many of Ireland’s prominent mountains and hills were climbed at Lughnasadh into the modern era. Over time, this custom was Christianised and some of the treks were re-cast as Christian pilgrimages. The most well-known is Reek Sunday—the yearly pilgrimage to the top of Croagh Patrick in Co Mayo in late July. As with the other Gaelic seasonal festivals, feasting was part of the celebrations. Bilberries were gathered on the hills and mountains and were eaten on the spot or saved to make pies and wine. (Stair na hÉireann website)

It was also common to visit holy wells:

Another custom that Lughnasadh shared with Imbolc and Bealtaine was visiting holy wells. Visitors to holy wells would pray for health while walking sunwise/sunward around the well. They would then leave offerings; typically coins or clooties. Although bonfires were lit at some of the open-air gatherings in Ireland, they were rare and incidental to the celebrations. (Stair na hÉireann)

Crom Dubh Sunday, Domhnach Crom Dubh

This year, 2019, an astonishing 20,000 pilgrims climbed Croagh Patrick on Reek Sunday, the last Sunday in July. I though headed off to the Feile Lughnasa in County Kerry and joined the many pilgrims and hill walkers eager to climb Mount Brandon. Here on the Dingle Peninsula, Reek Sunday has a different name, Domhnach Crom Dubh, named after an ancient pagan deity, Crom Dubh, a complicated and rather scary god, the lord of the harvest or the bringer of famine, depending on how he was feeling.

On the last Sunday of July, Domhnach Crom Dubh in Gaelic, he (Crom Dubh) rises from deep out of the earth bearing Eithne upon his crooked back. He rises up from out of the black soil wherein he dwells in order to lay claim to his share of the harvest, before sinking down again for the winter. But we are told that in times of poor harvest, a firstborn child would be sacrificed before Crom’s idol in the forested land of Magh Slecht (the Plain of Prostration) in order to appease the Crooked Lord of the Bloody Mound. These child sacrifices may have been an invention of the later Christian monks who wrote down what little we know of the god, but he certainly seems to have been associated (as are all gods) with sacrificial offerings in some form or another.

The legacy of Crom and his worship is shrouded in mystery and skewed by the early Irish Christian propaganda. But one thing that all accounts concerning this god seem to indicate is that he was dangerous. One did not carelessly pray to the Crooked One for trivial favours. (An Sionnach Fionn & The Dark God.)

I love this illustration from Dark Emerald Tales  which also contains some fascinating information about the dark crooked one.

The coming of Bréanainn & the defeat of Crom

With the coming of Christianity, the old ways came under threat. Usually it is St Patrick who seems to have challenged the pagan Crom Dubh but here on the Dingle Peninsula it is local lad St Brendan who rises to the challenge, and what an interesting story it is. St Brendan was born in Kerry around 484AD and is famous for his seafaring adventuring, earning himself the title of the Navigator. At some point he found himself on top of Mount Brandon, or Sliabh nDaidche as it still was, and remained here for three days and nights. During this time he had a vision in which an angel told him to seek out the Promised Land or the Isle of the Blessed. It was not a straightforward decision to comply as this powerful prayer from the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis demonstrates:

Shall I abandon, O King of mysteries, the soft comforts of home?

Shall I turn my back on my native land, and turn my face towards the sea?

Shall I put myself wholly at your mercy, without silver, without a horse, without fame, without honour?

Shall I throw myself wholly upon you, without sword and shield, without food and drink, without a bed to lie on?

Shall I say farewell to my beautiful land, placing myself under your yoke?

Shall I pour out my heart to you, confessing my manifold sins and begging forgiveness, tears streaming down my cheeks?

Shall I leave the prints of my knees on the sandy beach, a record of my final prayer in my native land?

Shall I then suffer the kind of wound that only the sea can inflict?

Shall I take my tiny boat across the wide, sparkling ocean?

O King of the glorious heaven, shall I go of my own choice upon the sea?

O Christ, will you help me on the wild waves?

He did indeed decide to take his tiny boat across the wide sparkling ocean, but before setting off Brendan vowed to build a church on the spot where he had received the vision.This did not please the resident deity Crom Dubh:

Long ago when St Brendan was building his church at the top of Mount Brandon he sent all his monks round the country to all the people asking them in some way for to build his church, like to go for a few days building or tending the masons or if they couldn’t do that to give them some money. Everyone all around the district gave some help because they liked St Brendan and his monks very much.

Anyway at that time there was a bad pagan man living at Cloghane and his name was Crom Dubh. He was very rich and had plenty of land and if he wanted to he could help out the monks a lot but the badness wouldn’t let him. He told them he couldn’t give them anything but if they wanted to, they could take his bull. This was an awful cross wild bull and he would kill anyone that would go anear him. He was wild in the mountain and Crom Dubh thought if the monks went to bring him down he would kill every one of them

The monks thanked Crom Dubh for telling them to take away the bull because the meat would be of great value for feeding the workmen, but they said they would go to St Brendan first and ask if he would be willing to take the bull. They went to St Brendan and he told them to go for the bull and there wouldn’t be any fear that  he would do them any sign of harm

The monks went and drove the bull before them and he was as quiet as a lamb. When Crom Dubh saw this he got afraid of the power of the monks and he sent for St Brendan for he wanted to become a Christian.

St Brendan came and had a talk with Crom Dubh but before he could baptise Crom he had to be buried under the earth for three days with his head exposed. When he was buried it rained all the days and night, and the last day he was under the earth was the worst day of all. That day is called Domhnach Crom Dubh and it is the last sunday in July. In this district it is known as ‘Cloghane Pattern Day as well as Domhnach Crom dubh and the day is almost always raining because that was the last day Crom Dubh was under the earth. (Folklore Collection: 410-13:MS888, 1942, taken from The Festival of Lughnasa by Máire MacNeill)

Another version describes how the bull had to be weighed against a piece of paper on which Brendan had written the Ave Maria – the paper weighed more than the bull and shocked Crom Dubh so much he immediately asked to be baptised! St Brendan built his church, Teampaillin Bréanainn, a well sprung up nearby known as Tobar Bréanainn, and the mountain was renamed  Cnoc Bréanainn. The old pagan ways seemed truly defeated – or were they? The climbing of the mountain continued under the auspices of a pilgrimage and and a popular pattern day thrived, based in the village of Clochán, Cloghane. This was:

… a great occasion of eating , drinking and games, which is a general term for all out debauchery. People visited the well of St Brendan near the village (the well no longer survives), before climbing the mountain. Traditionally many reached the summit for the dawn. Records show that people travelled from many parts to participate in the pilgrimage. Once Christianised the pilgrimage becomes part of the cult of St. Brendan. It is quite possible that many of the later monastic sites on the western side of the mountain are in some way linked to the ancient route taken by pilgrims. The pilgrimage to Mt. Brandon is at least of an Iron Age date (500bc – 500ad) and maybe more ancient. Like many ancient traditions it was adapted and Christianised and continued as part of rural life. The last great pilgrimage to Mt. Brandon was held in the 1860s when Bishop Moriarty of Kerry was carried on a sugán chair to the top of the mountain where he celebrated mass for 20,000 pilgrims. Such was the level of debauchery in the villages on all sides of the mountain for several days after the walk, that he banned the pilgrimage thereafter. (Kerryman, July 28 2010)

The image of the Bishop being carried up in his sugán chair is a bizarre one!  Crom Dubh was not forgotten though, for in the ruins of the old church in Cloghane was a stone head said to be that of the deity. It was visited during the pattern and pilgrims were expected to kiss it. It held a cure for toothache. Sadly it was stolen in 1993 and has not been seen since.

Edit: A new sculpture of Crom Dubh based on the original is now back in the church, the work of Mary J Leen.

The Pattern Today

The pilgrimage continues to this day, now part of the Féile Lughnasa in Clochán and Bréanainn.There are two possible routes up – the Cosán na Naomh to the west and the more arduous and wildly scenic to the east. According to Maire MacNeill in her exceptional book The Festival of Lunasa, a stiff and dangerous ascent awaited those who took the eastern route, something only the hardiest could attempt. Guess which route I was taking! I joined 47 other hardy types to take part in the six hour round trip to the summit of Mount Brandon and back. It was an astonishingly clear day – warm, no wind and more miraculously no clouds covering the mountain. We started off at Faha Grotto, dedicated to the BVM. Mícheál told us a little about the day that was in it and and then we set forth.

It was an incredible experience. A stiff climb up to start with onto the mountain, eventually rewarded with views of the Paternoster Lakes, so called because they look like  a string of rosary beads. Cairns started appearing, piles of stones, and at one point Mícheál pointed out a small spring trickling over the path, known as Tobarín, the little well. We lunched on flat rocks and were told by our leader Mossy that the next bit would involve a bit of puff. We gazed up at the sheer cliff face and wondered where the path was! It was certainly an aerobic scramble conducted in single file, each of us trying hard to concentrate on feet and not get distracted by the scenery.

But what a view from the top!

In front lay the Blaskets Islands, the Three Sisters, Ceann Sibeal and the Skelligs; and behind the curve of Castlegregory Strand and the Maharees. Gobsmacking!

A cross marked the true summit.

As people caught their breath and admired the view I looked for the well. It was still there, a little underwhelming but a well with a view!

Tobar Bréanainn, St Brendan’s Well is little more than an indent in the mountain but it still contains water. According to Caoimhín Ó Danachair in his paper The Holy Wells of Corkaguiney, the well is reputed to be bottomless and :

… on one occasion Saint Brendan, officiating on the summit, found that his missal had been forgotten: this war passed up from the mountain foot by the throng of pilgrims from hand to hand.

Two children enacted the age old ceremony of Lunasagh well leaping!

A mixture of other interesting features still remain including the oratory built by St Brendan, a  stone inscribed with a cross by countless pilgrims, a clochán or hut and a lot of humps and bumps referred to as Na h’Uaigheanna, the tombs. Once there was also a pillar stone known as Leac na nDrom. This held a cure for backache and seems to have been dangerously close to the edge of the mountain and has since disappeared!

The Rounds

The original turas was made at dawn, which meant pilgrims had to spend the night on the mountain. It involved circling the oratory, the pillar stone and the graves nine times, each time reciting the Rosary. Then the well was circled seven times, the rounds completed by taking a drink from the well, water could also be taken home to those too fragile to make the pilgrimage. The pilgrims then descended into Cloghane where a three day pattern was held  – one of the biggest festivals to be held on the peninsula. Originally there were games, dancing, music, feasting and of course faction fighting. Special meat pies were cooked and sheep slaughtered. Crom Dubh was still remembered as pilgrims visited his head in the old churchyard.

Another holy well down in the village, also dedicated to St Brendan, Tobar Bhréanainn, was included in the rounds. This has now vanished, distinguished only by a clump of flags and reeds.

Edit: Gail Tangney visited the pattern in July 2024 and it seems the well has now been cleared and signed, great to see.

Now it was time for us to descend and enjoy the goings on in Cloghane, the route helpfully signposted.

Back in the village the Feile was in full swing and Himself, whose knee had prevented him joining the climb, had also had an enjoyable time..

Later we strolled down to the strand where it was good to see that Crom Dubh was still remembered – I loved this artistic endeavour by one group of children as part of the sand sculptures competition. What a great Domhnach Crom Dubh.

Many thanks to Mícheál for his sharing his knowledge of the area. Many thanks to Gail Tangney for the photo of St Brendan’s Well, Cloghane.

The location of these wells can be found in the Gazetteer.