The signpost from the road
This is a slightly curious well in that it may represent a
well that was once dedicated to Saint Brigid, but over time local tradition has
planted the memory of a Fr Moore over the top. A few locals nearby will insist
that the Saint Brigid’s holy well is a couple of fields over from Fr Moore’s
well, but OS maps don’t suggest that and despite a good old rummage around the
fields I couldn’t find it. Now I could of course have simply been looking in
entirely the wrong place, but I’m not the only person to have thought that Fr
Moore’s well was once a well of Saint Brigid and that the well of Saint Brigid
‘of a few fields over’ is in fact a bit of a myth in order to preserve the
memory of Fr Moore at this site. For this reason it is a well that leaves me
with somewhat mixed feelings. I’m not in any way against the remembrance and
dedication of sites to the memory of holy people - this is how the honour of
saintliness arrives in some sense – but there is also a good old dose of folk
faith, which at times can be fascinating and even enlightening, but at worst can
do horrible cultural and historical damage to an area. What it might have wrecked or built up
here I’m not quite sure, but I can only muster a strange ambivalence to this
place. However, I cannot help but think that this well is merely an act of
archaeological butchery and the ruination of the link to Brigid.
The holy well complete with pebble-dash
As a holy well it is not entirely beautiful. It has a rather
horrible concrete surround and beneath it in the ditch there appears to be a
well of sorts too - or at least and overflow. It has a Madonna and child
trapped in a cage, a large sign warning you not to drink the water, vague notes
about Fr Moore and who he was and the finer points of a ritual observance in
order to extract a healing. But despite my own ambivalence towards this site,
it is obviously hugely important to the people of the area and it has all the
signs of active devotion and the expressions and tokens of hopefulness in
prayer.
The Madonna and Child
Fr John Moore was a priest who lived with his mother in a little
cottage not far from the well. He was born in Rathbride in 1779 and by 1799 he
had enrolled in Maynooth to train for ordination. He was ordained in 1804 and
appointed as curate to the parish of Allen and shortly after this he disappears
from parish ministry altogether. During his lifetime many considered Fr Moore
as having a gift of healing and many visited him for cures. Before his death in
1826 he is said to have blessed the well so that even after his death people
might find a cure. Shortly afterwards a parish priest (Fr P. MacSuibhne)
published a set of prayers to be said at the well at three visits in order to
obtain a cure. The protocol set down by him was to visit the well three times,
either on a Friday or a Sunday with a decade of the rosary, followed by a set
prayer for Fr Moore and his parents, personal intentions, then a bathing in the
well and finally three Hail Mary’s. Over the course of the three visits the
person seeking healing should avail of confession and have received communion
at least once. The more modern interpretation of this involves the necessity of
using the stepping stones across the well.
A warning sign!
Lord Walter Fitzgerald recorded his visit to the well in the
Archaeological Society Journal in January 1918. In it he describes the well at
the end of a muddy path with crutches and sticks stuck into the soft earth
around it as testimony to its curative properties, and the many wooden hand
crosses left as a symbol of thanks for healing and answered prayer. He also
describes being told a tale of how local clergy and some gentry became
concerned by Fr Moore’s activity and renown for being a healer which finally
resulted in the Bishop of the diocese paying him a visit and requesting him to
stop his practice, but after a supernatural demonstration, the Bishop was
convinced of his ability. But he is also told of rumours that Fr Moore was a
silenced priest, which would explain why in later years he had no connection to
a parish, while others argued that he refused position in a parish in favour of
providing healing for the sick.
To this day the Forde family retain the silk chimney hat of
Fr Moore, which I must say looks in rather bad shape. Those who suffer from
severe headaches go to the well when the hat makes its appearance and it is set
upon their head to enact a cure. I can’t say that I’d be in any great rush to
have the old battered hat of what may be a disgraced priest set upon my head
for any reason. It’s something of a shame we don’t know the real story of Fr
Moore, for speculation of his particular sins that resulted in his possible
disgrace will forever hang over this well as a dirty rumour or as a pointer to
the truth.
The stepping stones
Where to find it:
On the main road out of Kildare towards Milltown (R415), the
well is set back from the road and clearly signposted.
I brought a 14year old to Fr Moors well a few times as I had heard it cures migraines. She suffered very badly from these and would get physically sick with the pain. One Sunday couple of years ago, I heard Fr Moors hat was going to be at the well that day. I brought her and she has NEVER got a migraine since Thank God and Thanks to Fr Moore.
ReplyDeleteI saw a film about Fr. Moore's hat ("No Charge for the Hat") on an Aer Lingus flight from Shannon this summer. I found it interesting that after so many years people still maintain the devotion.
ReplyDelete