Live performance at St. Brendan’s Well, Coolock, Dublin
Photographed by George Hooker 

As part of Dublin History Festival, historian Katie Blackwood and artist Rónán Ó Raghallaigh hosted an event in Coolock Library and at St. Brendan’s Well. Katie Blackwood gave a talk about holy wells in North Dublin and attendees were shown how to make a Samhain Parshell cross. The group then walked to St. Brendan’s Well. This well has been blocked up and is now marked by a hawthorn tree, nettles and brambles beside the Santry River. Some attendees tied their Samhain Parshells to the tree. Rónán drew water from the river in a bucket and stirred it to create a percussion for meditation. He then painted imagery experienced during the meditation and improvised in the moment on a piece of canvas, using paint made of soil collected from the site thinned with the collected water.

The artwork was informed by Katie Blackwood’s research and Rónán’s own experience of the three wells in his hometown of Naas, Co. Kildare, being inaccessible and stories his father told of drawing water in an enamel bucket in Donard, Co. Wicklow for his Grandmother’s house. The work spoke to memories of generational practices, folk beliefs about fairy trees and holy wells, and the blocking and drying up of many wells in residential areas.

The following is an extract from Katie Blackwood’s essay ‘Four Holy Wells in North Dublin: past and present’-

This must be it. I pulled up and parked beside the kerb. Stepping out onto the footpath, I looked around at the 1970s-era housing-estate. It reminded me of the one that I grew up in, in another part of Dublin. [...] Looking around, I saw a typical suburban green. There were some signs of littering and scorch marks in the grass where fires had been lit suggesting people still gather here sometimes. ‘No Dumping’ signs were nailed onto the grey painted breeze-block walls. There was nothing to indicate that this was the site of a holy well.