Skip to main content

St Kevin's Well (Bullaun Stone) near Clonmel


Known as St Kevin's Well in the Schools Manuscripts, it is actually a bullaun stone rather than a spring well.

I visited this years ago and only just happened upon this folklore related to it recently.

"Rath-Caoimhighin, which means Rathkevin or the Fort of Kevin is situated about four miles from Clonmel and six miles from Cahir and is reached by a field from the main road.

It is a thickly wooded fort surrounded by a white thorn hedge. It was supposed to have been the abode of the Danes in olden times and was protected from enemies by a Moat, and inside the Moat was a wall. A drawbridge was placed over the moat and on the side fo the moat was an iron gong and beneath it a stout club.

When people came to it they struck the gong with the club and the people inside heard it and looked out to see whether it was a friend or an enemy. If a friend they raised the portcullis and let fall the bridge. There was a saint named Kevin living there, hence the name Rath-Caoimhighin. There is an obling stone with a hole in the middle, which is always filled with water, it is said that it never went dry, On this stone is the print of the saints hands and knees, where he used to pray every day. The water in this stone is supposed to cure warts on people's hands. This saint died in the fort, and was buried there."

https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922227/4862584/5020939


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hag Stones, are they an example of authentic Irish folklore or a neo-pagan import?

By Darkone CC BY-SA 2.0 The first time I ever heard of Hag-stones was this year. They are more commonly known as Adder stones and described on wikipedia as follows: " An adder stone is a type of stone, usually glassy, with a naturally occurring hole through it. Such stones have been discovered by archaeologists in both Britain and Egypt ."  In Britain they are also called hag stones , [1] witch stones , serpent's eggs , snake's eggs , or Glain Neidr in Wales , milpreve in Cornwall , adderstanes in the south of Scotland and Gloine nan Druidh ("Druids' glass" in Scottish Gaelic ) in the north. In Germany they are called Hühnergötter ("chicken gods"). In Egypt they are called aggry or aggri . Adder stones were believed to have magical powers such as protection against eye diseases or evil charms, preventing nightmares , curing whooping cough , the ability to see through fairy or witch disguises and traps if looked at ...

The Origins of the surname Ryan

NOTE: This is currently a work in progress and I ask for any feedback on what I have written. Ryan is one of the top ten surnames by population / number of people in Ireland. It would be nice if there was a simple explanation as to the meaning of the surname Ryan, unfortunately to my knowledge there isn't. The most likely explanation is that it goes back to a King or Chief of Idrone circa 900AD named Rian or Rien. It was around this time that the Irish began taking on surnames and it may be that it was after him his descendants began to be called, O or descendent of Rian. We are not sure how or when exactly the O'Mulryan name came about. It is likely that it means "descendent of the followers of Rian". However, this is not certain. We will see further down in this article that the genealogies suggest they are both descended from the same ancestor circa 900AD. Although other evidence does contradict this. Just what Rian means is not known for sure. Explana...

Ryan Family Nicknames

Over 500 individual Ryan Family nicknames - many with townlands associated with them. Click Here