Sun bright Fionán, jugfuls of whiskey & a raging priest

Back to Corca Dhuibhne, the Dingle Peninsula, and a stop off at Annascaul to find Tobar na Croise, Well of the Cross. Annascaul is a colourful and attractive little village, best know perhaps as being the home of Tom Crean of South Pole exploration fame. On his retirement from the Navy he and his wife opened this aptly named pub in 1920.

Well of the Cross, Tobar na Croise, Tobernacrusha

On the map it looked as though Tobar na Croise, Well of the Cross, was right by the roadside but this proved wrong. As I was peering hopefully into a field a man came out of the farmhouse, mug of tea in hand. He knew of the well and would take me. We set off at a cracking pace, across two fields and down into a small wooded copse – so fast, I didn’t catch my guide’s name.

The well had once been substantial judging by this photograph from the Duchas Photographic  Collection.

We hunted around in the undergrowth for a bit. There were banks and ditches and a smattering of stones but no obvious well.

In 1960, Caoimhín Ó Danachair in his paper, The Holy Wells of Corkaguiney, referred to the well as: a good clear well now used for domestic use, and although the area was damp nothing definitely well-like was revealed.

A shout went up, and the inscribed stone which gave the well its name was revealed.

It’s a simple but powerful statement, a Latin cross carved in relief. At least this doesn’t seem to have changed much since it was photographed at the same time as the well – I’m guessing in the 1940s, but there is no reference to the date or photographer.

According to An Seabhac, a pattern was once held here on the 27th August : Tugtaí turas ann fadó – ar an 27adh lá de Lughnasa, deirtear. (There was a pattern long ago, on the 27th day of August, it is said. Triocha-Céad Chorca Dhuibhne.) This was written in 1939 and it sounds as though the pattern hadn’t occurred for many years. A forlorn place today but still within memory.

Onwards towards Kinard. There were originally four wells here in close proximity but now only three remain.

Mary’s Well, Tobar Mhuire; Tobermurry & St Fionán’s Well; Tobar Fionáin,Toberfintan

We drove as far as we could along a small road, the views becoming more and more magnificent – huge views out towards Trabeg below and the looming presence of Beenmore in front.

A small gate looked hopeful, glimpses of a grotto beyond.

We wandered through, making sure to close the gate, admiring the beautifully scribed lettering in the sign.

Originally there were three wells on this site: Tobar Mhuire, Mary’s well; Tobar Fionáin, St Fionán’s Well and Tobar Michíl, St Michael’s Well. St Michael’s Well has now disappeared but  Mary’s Well and St Fionán Well lie close together, one faring better than the other. (Fionán has a multitude of spellings – Finan, Finnian, Fionáin, Fíonián – I’m sticking with Fionán in the text).

Mary’s Well is announced by a stone grotto topped with a cross. Inside the niche is a stone statue of the BVM. The arch of the grotto is decorated with white quartz – in fact there’s evidence of this all over the site.

The well lies underneath the grotto and is below ground. The water is contained in a rectangular basin made out of concrete blocks – one block laid horizontally separating the water from another box containing white pebbles. A slate slab serves as a lintel.

An assortment of odd stones surround the well. This photograph from an entry in the Schools’ Folklore Collection shows how it has changed since the late 1930s.

St Fionán’s Well lies almost next to this well but is in a sorry state. A sheet of corrugated metal covers the well, firmly anchored in place by concrete slabs, a stone cross the only hint of its sanctity.

This how it looked in the 1930s, another page from the same entry in the Schools’ Folklore Collection, more of this in a moment.

The water of both wells was believed to contain potent healing qualities.The cross above St Fionán’s Well was erected in 1918 in: … thanksgiving for the many cured of the influenza epidemic by water from the wells. (Ó Danachair). This of course was no ordinary outbreak of ‘flu but one of the deadliest epidemics the world has ever seen, usually known as the Spanish ‘Flu. It raged from January 1918 to December 1920 and caused the deaths of one fifth of the world’s population. In Ireland  800,000 people were affected, 23,000 dying. No areas were spared including Kinard. The date 1918 can still be faintly seen on the cross.

St Michael’s Well has seemingly vanished though I was told that although it might be invisible it is still there to those who can see it. It’s not marked on the early early OS maps. Another view of the wells, probably dating to the 1940s, from the National Folklore PHotographic Collection.

The origin of the wells is interesting and described in the same entry from the Schools’ Folklore Collection as the pages containing photographs. I especially love this extract for its beautiful handwriting, photographs and lively turn of phrase. It is written in Irish and I have to thank my friend Finola Finlay for the translation.

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Na Toibreacha Beannaithe i gcinn Aird

The three wells are there and the turas is made to the festivals still – Mary’s Well, Fionán’s Well, and Michael’s Well. When St Michael and St Fionán were coming from the Skelligs there was a fog and they didn’t know where they were when they came to land at Charles Strand. They went to the mountain but a great thirst was coming over them and not a drop of water to be had. They prayed to God to provide water to them and a beautiful well with clear water sprang up for all of them now at the bottom of the hill there. Then said Fionán, Now that God has given us this gift, I will make a sanctuary, everything that is from the river to the sea, and from the mountain to the strand and each person who comes into this sanctuary, his enemy shall not get him and they will not get the plague. They gave thanks to God then. The Virgin Mary came from among them and she praised highly their blessings and devotion and didn’t a third well spring from the side of the hill where she stood and from then on there were three holy wells in Kinard.

SFC:050-054:0426

There being three wells, the pattern days were numerous. Mary’s Well required the most devotions:

Mary’s Well: You do the rounds on: Mary Day with candles in the church – 2nd of February, Mary’s Day after Patrick’s Day, or Mary’s Annunciation Day- 25th of March,The first Mary Day in Autumn – 15th August, Mary of Dingle Day – 8th of September and now they do it on the 8th of December as well.

Fionán’s well: They do the turas here on the 17th February

Michael’s Well: Nobody does this anymore except very old people from that place or beside it. They do it on September 29th.

Ibid

The 17th of February adds to the confusion about St Fionán whose feast day normally falls on the 16th March – if you consider hims to be St Fionán the Leper, or the 7th April if you consider him to be St Fionán Cam, the Squinty One! Usually the Squinty One is associated with this area:

Fionán was regarded as one of the chief protectors of Corkaguiney and as one of the three coinnle, candles, of the Muscraighe, the others being Laichtín and Seanán.

Corpus Genealogarium Sanctorum Hiberiae, ed Pádraig Ó Riain, 1982

Though as recorded in this blog, feast days (and saints) are often confused and interchangeable. The 17th February incidentally is the feast day of St Fionán of Lindisfarne, which doesn’t help matters.

Caoimhin Ó Danachair recorded the ritual of the rounds in the late 1950s:

The ritual at the selected well a) a prayer to the patron of the well b) one rosary said kneeling at the well c) nine circuits of the well during each of which one pater and one ave is said; these rounds are counted with pebbles d) one decade said kneeling at the well, and finally the water is drunk and the hands and face washed. Small objects are left as offerings; there are usually fresh flowers in small jars or vases. Rounds are made on behalf of sick persons unable to come and water from the three wells is taken home to drink.

The route of paying the round is clear as it wends its way around Mary’s Well. There’s also evidence of the pebbles left behind by numerous pilgrims over the years.

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There was a specific well blessing:

I will bless you Holy Virgin

As the saints bless you

So I bless you.

As seems to be very common, the pattern days once attracted large crowds and things got boisterous. The same entry gives a lively description of what occurred:

There would have been a noted pattern in Kinard once. They would have Mass in the old chapel and then they – the priest and the people – would make the pilgrimage (turas) from the chapel to the holy wells that are at the bottom of the hill a few miles to the south west from the graveyard. They would do the trip (turas) around the wells and back to the chapel. But of course there wasn’t a pattern before except a large crowd of people were there . . . and drops of drink were going around the crowd  – ara what have I got to say only they weren’t drops at all but jugs, concerning whiskey. Weren’t there three people selling it in Darby’s house above. One man in the kitchen and another in the room below and reaching out through the window and outside in the cow house was the man at the bottom of it all. It was a good drop and he selling it at a shilling a pint. And usually a lot of drink without food, and quarrelling would follow. That was how it was and how it will be forever, I think. The pattern declined among some of the people who thought the drinking went too far because there was always fighting occurring there and some of them got well pickled(?) . . .The people of the well and the people of Teddy’s Bridge to the east – on the road beside Moriarty’s house was where they were living, the two groups that massacred each other that day. But the Parish Priest put a stop to the pattern because of it. The Parish Priest was raging the Sunday after it and he was going to put a curse and the church’s curse on the place after the commotion at the pattern, but a woman from those people arose and said:

O Priest, do not …

Soften your words

Kinard is blessed

A Saint came here,

Sun-bright Fionán

But if anyone is here

without faith or humanity

Punish him only

and not the whole place

Upon my Breviary, Good Woman said the priest, you are right.

Ibid

Hopefully things calmed down and the jugfuls of whiskey were limited. The old chapel referred to must be Teampall Chinn Aird, dedicated to Fionán, who was also patron saint of the area. Nothing remains of the old church, but two ogham stones and a bullaun stone are still on the site. Within sight of these wells is another well, its origins forgotten.

Well of the Slope,Tobar na Stéilleach, Tobernastellagh

It’s rough scramble down to Tobar na Stéilleach, possibly translated as Well of the Slope, which would be fitting. The well is still there but now encased in a concrete surround and used for domestic purposes.

I can find no information out about it and there’s nothing much to say except it’s in a spectacular position looking out to sea. The area surrounding it is damp and full of water mint. It also lies just outside a ringfort, its walls still clearly defined. If anyone has any information I’d love to hear it.

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

Many thanks to Finola Finlay for her translation skills.