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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Ritual site - holy well

Ballinlough, County Limerick, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Ritual site - holy well, Ballinlough, 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
Ballinlough
County
Limerick
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
St Jamess Well
Latest-edition OS map
St Jamess Well (1927)
Coordinates
52.51433, -8.41180
SMR number
LI032-112----

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

Ó Danachair (1955, 216) recorded the following details about this holy well; 'St James Well on 1840 map. A small well in an open field. Still known as a holy well, but devotions have long since ceased. The water cured stomach pains'.

See attached photos taken in 1954 by Caoimhín Ó Danachair, courtesy of and © National Folklore Collection, UCD. The Photographic Collection, F025.21.00251 accessible online at www.duchas.ie/en/cbeg/17014; F025.21.00252 accessible online at www.duchas.ie/en/cbeg/24556 and F025.21.00253 accessible online at www.duchas.ie/en/cbeg/24557.

Compiled and revised by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 1 October 2020

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
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