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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Ritual site - holy well

Rossbrien, County Limerick, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Ritual site - holy well, Rossbrien, County Limerick, 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
Rossbrien
County
Limerick
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Outlined
Latest-edition OS map
St. Dominicks Well (1924)
Coordinates
52.63837, -8.63112
SMR number
LI013-018----

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 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 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)
  • 1904 · Sheet 13. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated immediately NE of an overgrown trackway, in flat meadowland. The monument is heavily masked by dense scrub vegetation. A rectangular area (L 19m N-S by Wth 7.8m E-W) is enclosed by a dilapidated field wall. The ground is raised (D 0.3m) with rubble and cut by a recent channel, except to the SW where a smaller rectangular area (c. 3m N-S by 2.5m E-W) with an entrance (Wth 0.9m) to the N, is enclosed by partly collapsed mortared stone walls. Ó Danachair (1955, 214) describes it as 'a small well, about four feet deep, with steps leading down'. It was associated with a cure for eye ailments (ibid.).

See attached photo taken in 1954 by Caoimhín Ó Danachair, courtesy of and © National Folklore Collection, UCD. The Photographic Collection, F025.21.00415 accessible online at www.duchas.ie/en/cbeg/17068.

Compiled by: Denis Power

Revised by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 2 October 2020

References

Ó Danachair, C. 1955 The Holy Wells of County Limerick. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 85, 193-217.

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 Limerick All County Limerick records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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