Burial

The National Monuments Service's description

The Well of St Brendan's Anointing (KE078-005001-) is located on a small rock-knoll towards the centre of Emlagh Bog, Valencia Island, and overlooks the Atlantic just 400m to N. It comprises a holy well, a cross-slab, three stone crosses and a number of miscellaneous features, including a possible leacht.

Macartney Robbins (1912, 301; 1942) noted two arrangements of upright slabs, which he called 'graves', at this part of KE078-005001-. A number of slabs protrude through the ground surface just E of the knoll, and may be the remnants of the features described. Delap (1911, 406-7) recorded the following tradition about two burials which are known locally as the 'Grave of Two Men in Emlagh Bog'; St Brendan 'drew up his boat, and ascended the frowningcliff by means of steps, which are to this day as firmly and safely set on the face of it as if carved out by the hand of man. Having learned from the stranger that there were two persons lying at the point of death, some distance inland, who had not received the last Sacraments, he followed his guide, who led him into the thick of a forest — which is now-a-days an extensive bog, called Emlagh, in the townland of Coorhabeg, and here he discovered two men who were dying, and who had earnestly desired and prayed to die in the Christian faith, but who had not been baptized, nor received any religious instruction for want of opportunity. The strange guide then disappeared, and St. Brendan having instructed the dying men, administered to them the Sacraments of Baptism and Extreme Unction, and in a short time afterwards they died holy and happy deaths. They were buried where they died, and two pillar-stones which must have been brought from afar, mark the spot where they were laid at rest. The well from which the saint had procured the water for their Baptism, and which flows near the place of their burial, is known and recognised as a holy well, still called by Irish-speaking people Tober-olla-Brenainn (the Well of St. Brendan's Anointing)'.

See attached photograph courtesy of Amanda Clarke

The above description is derived from A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan (compilers), 'The Iveragh peninsula: an archaeological survey of South Kerry'. Cork University Press (1996), no. 939. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Revised by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 30 March 2022

References

O'Sullivan, A. and Sheehan, J. 1996 The Iveragh peninsula: an archaeological survey of South Kerry. Cork University press.

Delap, M.J. 1911 Some holy wells in Valencia and Portmagee. Kerry Archaeological Magazine 1, 403-14.

Macartney Robbins, J. 1942 Brief notes on monuments on Valencia Island. Unpublished letter in National Museum of Ireland.