Growing interest in Kilcullen's St Brigid's Well

All the interest in Brigid 1500 has had an unexpected effect on St Brigid's Well in Kilcullen, writes Brian Byrne. Small religious items are being left there.

"It's the first time in my memory that this has happened," says Julie O'Donoghue of Kilcullen Library. "I love this — I think it shows a revival in the cult of St Brigid."

Julie says she had three enquiries in the last week as to the location of the well. "We need a sign," she says, adding that perhaps the booklet on the holy wells of Kildare has helped pique interest in the Kilcullen one.

A sculpture of St Brigid feeding the poor, by the late Fr Henry Flanagan OP, teacher and sculptor at Dominican College Newbridge, is part of the well in Kilcullen. The piece is built into the stonework above St Brigid's Well and was commissioned in 1977 when the well area was being built to what it is today as part of the development of the Valley Community Park.

The tradition of St Brigid's Well in Kilcullen is long-standing, and in 1937, Eileen Dowling, aged 13, wrote about it it the schools folklore project carried out at the time. As local historian Mary Orford notes, Eileen lived in Thomastown, Kilcullen and collected the information from her father during the project.

"In Kilcullen valley beside the river Liffey is St Brigid's Well," Eileen wrote. "On the feast of St Brigid however the nuns of the convent and also the children of the national school used to go down and get bottles of holy water from it." Further material from Ballyshannon National School, where Margaret Dowling was principal, is available on the National Folklore Collection website www.duchas.ie. 

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