Ritual site - holy well

The National Monuments Service's description

Folklore collected from Ardpatrick National School recorded the following details about Ardpatrick holy well; ‘There is a holy well now nearly filled up on the hill here. The water lay about 15ft from surface, people said that if on looking down you did not see your reflection in the water you would die before the current year ran out. This well is marked on the ordnance map as Ardpatrick well & known as such to the people’ (The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0509, Page 429; https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922041/4921413).
Folklore collected from Kilmallock National School recorded the following tradition about ‘The Ancient Well of Ardpatrick’; ‘Near Ardpatrick, which is about a mile from Kilfinane, Co. Limerick, is situated an old well which is called the Robbers Well. If you looked into this well, and you didn't see your reflection, you were supposed to die within the year. But if you did see your reflection you were to have great joy.
One Sunday morning when the people were coming home from mass, a young couple went across the field where the Robbers Well was. They were laughing gaily as they peeped down over the edge of the well to see if they could see their reflections below in the clear water. But sad to say no fresh young faces looked up from below. They left the well with heavy hearts, but they soon forgot all about it, and some months later they were married. One morning the maid went up to call the boy and girl and getting no response she went into the room. A queer sight met her eyes, the bed-clothes were flung around the room, and on the bed lay the bodies of the once happy couple, killed by the Robbers Well’ (The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0528, Page 389; https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922115/4853532).
Ó Danachair (1955, 206) recorded the following details about this holy well; 'St Patrick's Well on 1840 map. A shaft about two and a half feet square, now dry and filled with rubble to about six feet below ground level, but said to have been forty feet deep. Probably was the well which supplied water to the monastery. Rounds were made within living memory but are now discontinued. The water was said to cure rheumatism, lameness and rickets. Formerly much visited on 17th March. Legend: A person who could not see his reflection in the well would die within a year'.

Compiled and revised by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 29 January 2021

References

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