The spring-fed Ogulla Holy Well in County Roscommon near Tulsk is where legend has it that St. Patrick baptized pagan High King Laoghaire’s daughters, Eithenia the Fair and Fedelmia the Red.
The Ogulla well is also called the Cliabach Well in some of Patrick’s hagiographies.
The was in use by Irish pagans prior to the arrival of Christianity. The well is one of numerous examples of Catholicism converting sacred pagan sites into scared Christian sites as the Irish pagan population is converted.
Today the site is considered one of the most sacred of the 25 holy wells associated with Patrick in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The faithful leave votive offerings at a statue of St. Patrick located next to the well. In the rag tree tradition strips of cloth are tied around tree limbs and sometimes on the high cross that sits atop the well. The statue of St. Patrick is deteriorating and has lost its hands. Photos online show the statue once had a metal shepherd’s crook, which as of late 2022, was missing.
The story of the baptism of Eithenia and Fedelmia is one of more bizarre and creepy of the St. Patrick legends.
Prior to the baptisms at Ogulla, Patrick had already had an intense encounter with their father, King Laeghaire at Tara. Patrick had ignited a fire at Hill of Slane in defiance of the king’s order not to light fires while a pagan feast fire was burning at Tara.
Summoned to Tara to explain himself, Patrick had a kind of evangelical mystical showdown with the king’s pagan priests, according to biographies written centuries after Patrick’s death.
Laeghaire, who had reportedly been trying to assassinate Patrick. However, he was impressed by the Christian missionary’s devotion to his belief and allowed him to continue preaching in Ireland.
Which bring us to his encounter with the king’s daughter’s.
The legend of Patrick’s baptism of Eithenia and Fedelmia is repeated in similar form in at least three separate accounts, all written hundreds of years after Patrick’s death near the end of the 5th century.
The accounts appear in the Book of Armagh (mid 9th century), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Armagh the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick (late 9th century) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vita_tripartita_Sancti_Patricii, and in Fr. John Colgan’s Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acta_Sanctorum_Hiberniae published in 1645.
It is Fr. Colgan’s account that has become the popular version of the story.
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=7tdhAAAAcAAJ&rdid=book-7tdhAAAAcAAJ&rdot=1&pli=1
In Colgan’s elaborate account, Ethenia and Fidelmia were baptized at Ogulla Well in the year 432 or 433, depending the source.
According to CatholicSaints.Info, Ethenia and Fidelmia “among the first converts to Christianity made by Saint Patrick.” https://catholicsaints.info/book-of-saints-ethenia-and-fidelmia/
While on a pilgrimage, St. Patrick arrived at a fountain called Clibech (today Ogulla Well) near Cruachan, with a large number of clerics. The group decided to camp there for the night and the account says they sang the praises of god and prayed all night.
In the morning, Ethenia and Fidelmia, the daughters of the King, show up at the fountain. In this telling, the astonished royal daughters thought Patrick and his band of clerics beings of another world.
But they quickly began questioning the group, most likely recognizing Patrick from his showdown with their father at Tara.
But Patrick manages to convert the two Druid princesses who take holy communion – and they die. Some account says Ethenia and Fidelmia wanted to be with Jesus so much the died of longing.
Ethenia and Fidelmia are later named as Catholic saints.
And no doubt their father was unhappy with Patriock and his band of roving clerics.
Sources and links:
Acta Triadis Thaumaturgae. In: Colgan, John. Acta Sanctorvm Veteris Et Maioris Scotiae, Sev Hiberniae Sanctorvm Insvlae, Volume 2. Publisher: Apud Cornelivm Coenestenivm, 1647.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7tdhAAAAcAAJ
Ogulla Holy Well
http://www.megalithicireland.com/Ogulla%20Holy%20Well%20Tulsk.html
Ogulla Holy Well: A Microcosm of Irish Spiritual History
http://pentecostaltopagan.com/my-pagan-path/ogulla-holy-well-a-microcosm-of-irish-spiritual-history/
St. Patrick Converts the King’s Daughters
https://traditioninaction.org/religious/h121_Patrick_4.htm
St. Patrick founds Ogulla Church,
https://www.irelandxo.com/ireland-xo/history-and-genealogy/timeline/st-patrick-founds-ogulla-church
Music:
Where the Thistle Grows - Bonnie Grace
Governor Of The North - Jo Wandrini
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