Ritual site - holy well

The National Monuments Service's description

According to the OS Letters (1839), there was, ‘a holy well called after Molua a few perches north of it but the present high road was passed over it many years ago and its spring driven to find another vent a little to the southeast where it, however, attracts no veneration or devotion from the inhabitants of the district. There is a Patron held here still on the 4th day of August, which is Saint Molua’s Festival’ (O’Flanagan 1930, vol. 2, 52 (18)). Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 440-41) describes how, ‘Previous to the construction of this road in or about 1760, Thubbermolooa was a great pool, which lay partly on the track of the road, and partly to the west of it in the bog. Those who made the road filled up the pool, but conveyed the spring thence, by a drain, to the east side of the highway, which is the present location of Thubbermolooa’. A medieval wooden statue of the saint was moved from the holy well to the RC church (built in 1859) in Killaloe, c. 250m to the S, though it probably originally came from the medieval church (KK022-018005-) at Killaloe, which is no longer visible at ground level.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 24 May 2021

References

O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1930 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Kilkenny collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1839. Bray.

Carrigan, Rev. W. 1905 (Reprint 1981) The history and antiquities of the diocese of Ossory, 4 vols. Kilkenny. Roberts Books and Wellbrook Press.