Brigid to Brigid

Fifty Holy Wells, #37

St Brigid’s Well, Loughrea, County Galway

Here we are again, at St Brigid’s well in an Irish midlands town. Last week we were in Mullingar, and this time around we’re in Loughrea. Loughrea, being west of the Shannon, might not technically be in the midlands, but I’m not sure what the rules are, so I’ll leave that scrap to any of the locals who care to have it. What we can say for certain is that this is another ancient well on the edge of an old town, dedicated to St Brigid. There, though, the comparisons end.

Loughrea is a town I know, so I can say with some confidence that not much ever happens here. A small Medieval Festival is held in the park every summer, and the circus pitches camp by the lake once a year. Sometimes the funfair will turn up too. Apart from that, the town offers the usual array of modern urban essentials: nail bars, hairdressers, hardware shops and an endlessly proliferating range of ‘coffee docks’ where capitalism’s soma can be legally consumed by the pint. An efficient consumer is a happy consumer.

Loughrea has an interesting history, though. You can still see the remains of its medieval walls scattered around the town, and its outsized cathedral has a little museum full of old Catholic relics, as well as a good few pre-Vatican II robes and mitres. Some of the folklore is intriguing too. The town’s name means ‘the grey lake’, because it sits on the shore of one. According to the Dindsenchas, a tenth-century collection of place-name lore, it was customary many centuries back for all the sheep in Ireland to be driven into Lough Rea once every seven years. When the sheep emerged from the lake they were apparently coloured red. How this happened, or why it was done, seems to have been left to the imagination.

This well was probably a source of veneration at the time, given that it is rumoured to lie on what was once the site of a fifth or sixth century monastery. These days, it is a self-contained little place, enclosed within four stone walls. Somebody still tends the flowerbeds here, and comes to paint the gate:

There are no signs of any monastery now though. The well lies down a tiny back road to nowhere. Nearby is a big new school building and the back of a housing estate. There is not much sign of anyone visiting this place, and when we look into the well itself, we can see why:

The well is dry, and looks to have been for some time. There is no sign of water at all. There could be any number of prosaic explanations for this, of course. Top of the list would probably be the rise in the town’s population, and the ongoing building works, all of which would put pressure on the local water table. But we denizens of the wells know that there are more serious reasons, too, why a holy well can dry up - chief among them being the possibility that someone, somewhere has done something to offend it.

We’ve heard a few such stories on our travels so far. Sometimes we hear of butchers washing animal viscera in holy wells. Sometimes it’s people taking water to boil their tea, or even filling in the well to stop people visiting. Offended, the well dries up. Sometimes it appears somewhere else; sometimes it affects a revenge on its persecutor; sometimes it just disappears.

Who could have offended the saint at this well? Unfortunately, my money is on the local Church:

It looks like Loughrea has a case of neo-pagan creep. It’s not a severe case: at least the well’s information sign acknowledges that St Brigid was actually a Christian saint, as opposed to, say, a triple goddess, a lesbian and an abortionist. Still, things are looking shaky. We are offered the common - but evidence-free - story of the ‘pagan goddess’ who was transmuted into a Christian saint, as well as the claim about St Brigid’s Day previously having been an ‘old pagan festival of spring’, a claim which also appears to be unproven, as I wrote back in February.

If you ask me, this is a mealy-mouthed, modernist mess of a signboard. I can’t imagine what the founders of the old monastery here would have thought of it. Certainly the saint, from behind her prison bars, does not look very impressed:

Is this kind of insult enough to cause a well to dry up? We can only speculate. Still, God is not mocked; and neither, in all likelihood, is St Bridget. If you’ve read her biographies - and I have - you’ll know what she’s capable of when riled. Paganise her at your peril, I’d say. Especially if you are the guardian of her well …