Ritual site - holy well

The National Monuments Service's description

In pasture, located at the base of a S-facing slope in a narrow stream valley, c. 50m to NW of the mouth of the stream where it debouches into the estuary of the River Moy.
This holy well in named ‘Tobermurry’ on the 1838 and 1929 OS 6-inch maps. It consists of a spring well enclosed within a rectangular, stone-built well house (2.70m E-W; 3.2m N-S; H 1.18m at N gable, 2.10m at S gable), which is built into the base of the natural slope. The walls (T 0.63m) are of roughly coursed, mortared rubble, and the pitched roof is of roughly overlapping mortared stone slabs. At the apex of the S gable is a stone on which a plain Latin cross is engraved. Beneath this, two stone plaques are set in the gable wall, one above the other. The larger, uppermost plaque bears two engraved inscriptions, one in English and one in Latin. The upper inscription is in English and reads:
‘This Chapell was built in
Honour of the Blessed Virgin
In the year of Our Lord 1798 by
John Lynott of Rosserk Esq’

An engraving of a bird, probably a dove, flanked by the words Pax et Amor, separates the English inscription from the Latin inscription beneath. The 1838 OS Letters (O’Flanagan 1927, 86) record the latter as reading:
‘Discite justiciam moniti et non temnere divos [divis?]
Mortem non timeo, Mors est in limine nostro. Dicessem [Decessem?]
A monle [monte?] velut unla solis [umbra solis?]
----[effaced]’

Directly beneath the large plaque, is a smaller inscribed stone (MA022-083002-) which is said to have been at the well before the well house was constructed by Lynott. It bears a Latin inscription dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, with the date 1684.
Beneath the two plaques, there is a square aperture or window (Wth 0.41m; H 0.42m) set 0.5m above ground level, which provides a view into the interior of the well house.
At the S end of the W wall, a lintelled doorway (Wth 0.53m; H 0.75m), paved with stone, gives access to the pool which fills the entire interior space of the well house. There is a small lintelled recess or cupboard in the interior face of the E wall.
The outflow from the well emerges beneath the S gable into an open channel (Wth 0.2m) which carries the water through marshy ground for c. 15m to ESE, where it joins the stream that flow through the valley.
A hawthorn bush grows from the N end of the well house roof.
The popularity of the well as a focus of pilgrimage was increased by a Marion apparition, reputed to have occurred at the well in the 17th century. A penitential station (MA022-083002-) is located immediately to the SW.

MA022-083001-_01.JPG Holy well viewed form W
MA022-083001-_03.JPG Holy well viewed form W
MA022-083001-_04.JPG Holy well viewed form NW
MA022-083001-_05.JPG Holy well viewed form S
MA022-083001-_06.JPG S facade
MA022-083001-_07.JPG Interior of well

Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy

Date of upload: 7 May 2019

References

O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1927 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Mayo collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1838. Bray.