TreeAlive
‹ Sites and Monuments Record, Ireland

Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Ritual site - holy well

Gortavalla East, County Limerick, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Ritual site - holy well, Gortavalla East, 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
Gortavalla East
County
Limerick
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Kennys Well
Latest-edition OS map
Kennys Well (1927)
Coordinates
52.59021, -8.27639
SMR number
LI015-039----

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)

Get directions ↗

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

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated immediately E of a kink in a stream, in poorly drained pasture. Indicated on the 1927 OS 6-inch map as 'Kenny's Well'. Described by Ó Danachair (1955) as 'a clear spring well about three feet in diameter…the water cured many ailments. Locally called 'Saint Kenny's Well', reputed to be St Cainneach of Kilkenny. There is a legend that the well moved when an infant was washed in it'. The site is now covered by overgrowth but there appears to be a circle or square of rocks around the spring (Wth c 0.5m). The well no longer seems to be in holy use.

See attached photos taken in 1954 by Caoimhín Ó Danachair, courtesy of and © National Folklore Collection, UCD. The Photographic Collection, F025.21.00288 accessible online at www.duchas.ie/en/cbeg/24544 and F025.21.00287 accessible online at www.duchas.ie/en/cbeg/17028.

Compiled by: Denis Power

Revised by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 1 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)
See your own family's places on a living map