Friday 8 July 2016

St Johns Well, Nenagh North


Following on from yesterdays post about the recent Mass at St Johns Well, I decided to make a quick trip there myself.
I had stopped for a quick look around before but this time I took a more detailed look.

It is described in archaeology.ie as follows

"Situated in a slight hollow on the S bank of a river. A stone-faced square-shaped well (dims. 1m x 1m x 0.75m D) with a stream flowing out of the N face into the nearby river. The well is contained within a large concrete wall. It is dedicated to St John whose feast day is the 24th of June and there is a statue of St John over the well. According to Sheehan (1949, 38-9) the well was visited in the nineteenth century on this feast day for its curative powers. No votive offerings visible."

It is a beautifully maintained well with some interesting features.




In the surround of the well are two semi circular stone features, the design on them suggest to me that they were probably worked /carved and so are probably architectural fragments taken from somewhere else.




Also a stone has been embedded in concrete beside the well with the words "Croagh Patrick" carved into it. I'm guessing that perhaps someone brought back a stone from the mountain while on a pilgrimage there.


I had came across a reference previously in the Schools Manuscripts that I found interesting.

From duchas.ie

http://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5162110/5155109/5168413

"St. John's well is situated about one mile from Nenagh and on Brookwatson lands. It is called after St. John, and the print of his foot is still to be seen on a stone there. The people of the town still go to visit it on his feast day - 22nd June. St. John's Terrace is called after him."

There was nothing jumping out at me as being very foot like, however this stone below with a slight semi-circular bit missing is a possible contender. It looks very different to the more modern flag stones and you would wonder why it was retained? (Apologies for the quality of the photo).


All in all, a very peaceful and tranquil place diminished by the proximity of a meat processing plant on the opposite bank of the adjacent river. It didn't smell so great.

Edit
See my next post about finding St. Johns footprint stone here. (Thanks to John Flannery of Ormond Historical Society for the location).

5 comments:

  1. The 'footprint' embedded stone was a round boulder protruding from the ground in the field behind the well, as far as I remember.

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  2. Thanks, I'll have a scope about and see if I can see anything.

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  3. If St. John didn't come to Nenagh, he should have.

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  4. Ha ha, we will have to put that on the tourism brochures for the town. "We are not sure if St. John actually came to Nenagh, but if he did I'm sure he would have stayed in O'Meara's Hotel"!

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  5. Cheers https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ5Eiszaioo

    ReplyDelete