Celtic Spirituality 8 - Wells - 1

St. John's Well is in a secluded grove, down a foot path off a tiny lane. It  is well kept, it has prayer ribbons, flags and other bits to focus and continue the prayer in the trees just behind it.

Some parts of our explorations of Ireland have found exceptionally ancient pre-Christian roots. Some have found roots in ancient Christian practice. Some have bridged the gap from the earliest pre-Christianity to the most modern religious practice.

St. Brendans Well. Located in a field a bit of a walk from a desolate dirt road and on the other side of a fence and a creek from where one can park. You have to want to get here, to get here.

The cross associated with an ancient church right near St. Brendan's Well.  The church is long gone.

Living on an island, especially near the ocean means seeing an awful lot of water that one cannot drink. Having a source of fresh water is essential to life. Running water here is easy to find, but natural springs are rare. Imagine the power or value such a feature might have had 5000 years ago. A spring might have been seen to have healing powers or even been seen as a passage to the underworld of the ancient gods.

St. Fursey's well. So secluded we could not find it, in spite of the sign.

Whatever the local beliefs 5000 years ago, when Christians came along they tended to claim the spiritual places in the name of Christ and name them after famous saints. Associating a saint name with a place lent characteristics to the space and gave a cause to retell the story of that saint. It would also make a place to go to on the feast day of that saint to have a celebration to remember their mighty deeds, holy visions or their charitable actions as models for us.

St. Bridget's well near the cliffs of Moher. Behind the statue is actually just the entrance to a tunnel about 20 feet long lined with hundreds of memorials, statues, candles and funerary scripts.

St. Bridget's well. Directly above this space is the edge of a graveyard. Just outside is a very busy road. Those things account for a lot of the leavings in this place.

Most wells we went hunting for were in quite out of the way places. Some were more sheltered and more cared for, others seemed a bit worn down and neglected. At least one was just re-consecrated as late as 1994 and is right on a roadside so it is easy to find. Wells in modern times serve as focal points for prayer and supplication. They serve as gathering spots. Mostly they serve as a focus for hope. The hope is in God, and the focus is yet another thin place. A place where one feels closer to God.

St. Mary's well and grotto. There is an upturned boat look to the rock walls. The grotto was dedicated in 1997, but the well at the base has been there thousands of years. It is literally along a roadside today.

At the wells in secluded out of the way places it is easier for me to sense a holiness about the place. However, the outpouring at St. Bridget's well in particular is a testament to the need of people to find hope. St. Bridget's well lies at the foot of a cemetery and has hundreds of objects related to deceased people.

Maumanorig is an ancient monastic site that has remnants of a church walls an enclosing wall and...

...a rock with Ogham writing and a cross.

Of course in early Christian times there were some innovations brought to spirituality - Monasteries, abbeys and oratories. In Ireland starting in the 5th century, religious folks sought solitude and quite to reflect and pray. They sought the assurance a rule of life could bring for how they were to live. This often led to communal life with other believers. So they would stack up rocks to build simple shelters and huddle against the cold and live a rather ascetic life.

This bull (The brown and white one on the right) guarded the cows from Mary and me walking by. He faced us the whole time and did not settle until we left the field and shut the gate at Maumanorig.

Sometimes the shelter housed just one or a few people. Sometimes they grew to hold hundreds. Some of the practices these people pursued still echo in our culture today. Going away on retreat today might be for a day or a weekend, and many Christians continue that practice today. These people devoted themselves to prayer and work. We have real people of prayer in our communities today who focus a great deal of energy on the needs they are aware of.

St Manchan Oratory. A small church and a stone in front with a cross on it marks an ancient Christian grave.

Monastic sites number in the thousands around Ireland. They are generally distinguished from non- monastic homesteads by some Christian artifacts or cultural markers. Often homes were made of wood, mud and thatch, Monasteries and churches usually started that way also but if the site was succeeding a more permanent rock structure generally followed. This seems to reflect human understanding of building dwellings to last a lifetime, but workshops spaces and grave markers for eternity.

Reask monastic site. This place has lots of graves, standing stones, and several interesting double rooms.

While there are thousands of monastic spots, some stand out as especially interesting. Sometimes they have unique architecture, sometimes they have amazing remaining crosses, and sometimes they have spectacular views. The most spectacular oratory (a tiny church) that I have seen is the Gallarus Oratory. This place never fails to impress. On the day we visited, my daughter and her husband were visiting and posed in the window 

The Gallarus Oratory.

Mary, Kristina and Josh

When a well, or a monastic site does not quite inspire enough, there are also holy mountains. The site of pilgrimage from ancient times to modern, Mt. Brandon, calls the soul to a very wild place. I'd love to show a picture of the peak, but in all the time we spent looking for it, never once did the clouds clear to see it. Mt. Brandon is just under 1000 meters tall. It is steep and rocky and on the day I went up it was shrouded in clouds.

Mt. Brandon inside a cloud. Yes, that is the path ahead.

The pilgrims way is marked by regular white posts so even in bad fog, one can pick their way up and down the mountain. There is also a series crosses to mark regular stopping points for prayer. the first cross stands at a place where when one looks in the correct direction, one can see Skellig Michael in the distance, just above the ridge line to the left of the tip of the cross.

Skellig Michael is faintly visible to the left.

There will be more on wells soon, but for now, I will sum this post up with an observation. When Christianity arrived here in the 5th century it spread quickly and was embraced intensely. Some of the hallmarks of that Christian movement was a focus on how one lived and not on how others lived. It focused on a personal relationship to God and a communal one. It had no army to back it up and so spread through good works and grace not power or force. There was quickly established a variety of spiritual practices so that the faith could be practiced by villagers, monks, hermits and farmers.

A shrine to Mary, about 100 feet off the ground at a shale quarry on Valentia Island.

If you want to pursue a deep faith today, one of the challenges is to seek out what speaks to your soul and how your souls responds to the call. How will we live out the Song of God in the new land he has given us?