Holy well, Tyrrelstown, Co. Dublin

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Holy Sites & Wells

Holy well, Tyrrelstown, Co. Dublin

A small stone well-house sits at a roadside on the townland boundary between Tyrrelstown and Buzzardstown in north County Dublin, looking rather like a miniature chapel that has wandered away from the ruins of Mulhuddart church, visible less than three hundred metres to the north.

The structure is vaulted, approached by stone steps, and topped with two finials: one a stone carved with a cross in relief, the other a niche bearing a worn inscription. A prayer to the Blessed Virgin, partly weathered into illegibility, is carved on each face of the structure. A stone water font sits on top. The well is dedicated to Our Lady, and it is still venerated today, which places it in a category of sites that have maintained continuous religious use from at least the early modern period into the present. Fingal County Council has also recognised it as a County Geological Site, an unusual double distinction.

By around 1740, when the traveller Isaac Butler passed through on his journey towards Lough Derg, the well was already a substantial gathering point. He noted upwards of eighty tents pitched around it on the 8th of September, the pattern day, a traditional annual assembly combining religious devotion with socialising and trade, selling drink and provisions to what he called a vast concourse of all sexes and ages from many miles around. The pattern was eventually discontinued, according to folklore collected from Mulhuddart School, owing to the conduct of some of those attending. The same folklore archive, part of the Schools' Collection compiled in the 1930s, preserves accounts of cures attributed to the water: rheumatism, sore eyes, cuts, and bruises are all mentioned, and one account describes a man who recovered his sight after visiting the well nine times, each time on the first Friday of the month, washing his eyes and reciting the rosary. A Mr Lyster of Stoneybatter, suffering from rheumatism, reportedly took the water home and applied it daily until the complaint resolved. There is also a legend that the well once occupied the opposite side of the road, was filled in by workmen, and immediately reappeared where it now stands.

The well sits by the roadside, marked as Lady's Well on the 1837 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, and is still findable at the townland boundary. The ruined church and graveyard at Mulhuddart lie roughly 270 metres to the north-north-east, making the two sites worth visiting together. The 8th of September, the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin, was historically the most significant day at the well, though the formal pattern is long since gone. Look closely at the finials and the carved surfaces; the prayer inscription on the stonework is partially legible but requires patience, as some sections have been lost to weathering.

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