Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland
Ritual site - holy well
Bellayarha South, County Galway, Ireland
The record
- Townland
- Bellayarha South
- County
- Galway
- Country
- Ireland
- First-edition OS map
- St. Patricks Well
- Latest-edition OS map
- St. Patricks Well (Site of)
- Coordinates
- 53.24601, -8.54921
- SMR number
- GA097-013----
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
Shown on 4 historical map sheets, the earliest the 1753 "Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae" (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).
This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗
The National Monuments Service's description
In low-lying grassland prone to flooding. The OS Letters note that by 1839 this well was ‘dried up’ (O’Flanagan 1927, Vol. 1, 499). All that survived when it was visited is a number of limestone blocks and rubble, obscured by overgrowth. Details from The Schools’ Collection (https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4583347/4581607, last accessed 20/12/2022) indicate that the site of the well was still visible and marked by a ‘round hollow’ roughly 3m in diameter and 1m deep in the 1930s. It was then already long disused and dried up, but there was still a local tradition that ‘cures were effected there’.
Compiled by: Galway Archaeological Survey, UCG and Anne-Julie Lafaye
Date of upload: 9 January 2023
References
O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1927 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Galway collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1839. Typescript in 3 vols. Bray.
Nearby in the register
- Enclosureunder 1 mi
- Ringfort - rathunder 1 mi
- Churchunder 1 mi
- Graveyardunder 1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.