Well

The National Monuments Service's description

Spring well in a field that was annotated 'Beorlyon Field' on the 1837 ed. OSi 6-inch map and which was recorded by O'Donovan as the place where Queen Maeve was killed. In 1837 the Ordnance Survey recorded that the field where Maeve was killed was called ‘Beor-Laighionn (Beorlyon)’. O'Donovan recorded the following tradition about this field; 'the story about Forby's killing Queen Meava on this island is vividly remembered, and the spot where she was bathing when the stone struck her in the forehead, pointed out with great traditional confidence; to the field called Beor-Laighionn (Beorlyon), in Inis Clothran. After Oilioll (the husband of Meava) had been killed by Conall Cearnach, Meava went to reside on Inis Clothran, in Lough Riv, and while there it was enjoined upon her to bathe herself every morning in a well which is in the entrance to the island. herself every morning in a well which is in the entrance to the island. When Forbaid, the son of Conquobar (of Ulster), heard of this he came alone one day to visit the well, and measured with a thread the distance from the brink of it to the opposite shore of the lake; and this measurement did he carry with him to Ulster. One morning, while there, he perceived Meava bathing herself in the well according to her custom, and thereupon he fixed a stone in his Crann Tabhuill, and making a shot towards her, aimed her directly in the fore head, and killed her on the spot' (Bigger 1900, 85-6).
In 1891 Mr. Dan Farrell, an islander of Inchcleraun described the place where Maeve was killed as a ‘hollow, where there was in ancient times a well in which Queen Maeve used to bathe, just here, and I was telling how she was killed by the lick of a stone that laid her low, from the county Longford’ (Banim 1891, 339).

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 10 February 2023