TreeAlive
‹ Sites and Monuments Record, Ireland

Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Ritual site - holy well

Rakerin, County Galway, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Ritual site - holy well, Rakerin, County Galway, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Rakerin
County
Galway
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
‘Tobermacduagh’
Latest-edition OS map
‘Tobermacduagh’
Coordinates
53.07278, -8.78152
SMR number
GA123-080----

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1753 map "Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae" (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1753 · Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

Get directions ↗

This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

In flat pastureland. Known locally as ‘St Coleman’s Well’. On inspection this holy well was defined by a natural spring, roughly P-shaped in plan and enclosed by a drystone-built wall (2.2m N-S; 0.3-1.4m E-W; H 1.5m). The spring fed a domestic well immediately to the N. A slab across the N end of the spring well, c. 0.4m above the water level, formed a division between it and the domestic well. According to local information, St Colman stopped to pray, after burying the ‘King’, at a large flagstone in the field to the SW. The flagstone is said to bear the imprints of his knees.

Galway Archaeological Survey, UCG

Date of upload: 9 May 2023

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
All Ritual site - holy well in Galway All County Galway records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
See your own family's places on a living map