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 Find this video worthwhile? Please Buy Me A Coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/rdscallyN #ireland #irishhistory #irish #history #HolyWell #stpatrick #earlychristian #saintpatrick #Ogulla #Roscommon
Category Archives: Holy Wells
Inside St. Brigid’s Holy Well – Imbolc/St. Brigid’s Day
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St. Brigid is the bridge between paganism and Christianity in Ireland.
St. Bridgid is one of the three Irish national saints – the others are Patrick and Columba. She is considered the patroness saint, or mother saint, of Ireland. https://www.libraryireland.com/Wonders/St-Brigit-1.php/
Feb. 2023 marks the first year that St. Brigid’s Day will be a national holiday in Ireland, the first named for a woman. https://www.newsendip.com/saint-brigid-day-ireland-first-public-holiday-created-after-a-woman/
The result of a successful three-year campaign to establish St. Brigid’s Day, Ireland’s newest national holiday will be observed in 2023 on Monday, 6 February.
The initiative to make St. Brigid’s Day an Irish national holiday was spearheaded by HerStory https://www.herstory.ie/home, an organization founded in 2016 that tells women’s stories through education and arts programs.
Also known as Saint Brigid of Kildare or Brigid of Ireland, she is purported to have been born and raised circa 451 AD in Faughart just north of Dundalk in County Louth. She is said to have died in Kildare on 525 AD.
St. Brigid is the patron saint of Ireland, poetry, learning, healing, protection, blacksmithing, livestock and dairy production. A very busy saint, Brigid is also patron saint of babies, boatmen, children whose parents are not married, children whose mothers are mistreated by the children’s fathers, Clan Douglas, fugitives, Leinster, mariners, midwives, nuns, the poor, poultry farmers, printing presses, sailors, scholars, travelers, and watermen.
However, there are few historic facts about Brigid. There is on-going debate among both secular and Christian scholars over whether she was a real person.
St. Brigid shares her name with a Celtic goddess.
Some scholars suggest that St. Brigid is a Christian version of the pagan goddess. Others argue that she was a real person whose story was given the goddess’s attributes.
Christian monks “took the ancient figure of the mother goddess and grafted her name and functions onto her Christian counterpart,” art historian Pamela Berge asserts.
St. Brigid was an abbess who founded several convents, most notably in Kildare, which were Ireland’s most important, according to medieval Irish hagiographies.
“By the end of the seventh century, at least two Latin biographies had been written describing her as a nobleman’s daughter who chose to consecrate her virginity to God, took the veil as a Christian nun, and became the leader of a community of religious women — or perhaps of both women and men,” Phylilis G. Jestice wrote in ‘Holy People of the World: A Cross-Cultural Encyclopedia’. “Certainly, by the seventh century, there was an important double monastery at Kildare that regarded her as its founder.”
Votive Offerings and The Rag Tree
Pilgrims often leave votive offerings at St. Bridgid’s Holy Well. Growing next to the well is a rag tree. A common offering at holy wells is a rag or piece of cloth that is attached to the ‘rag tree’, which is often also considered holy. Offerings include pins, medals, rosary beads, holy pictures, statues and so forth. The offering represents the sickness the pilgrim wants cured.
St. Brigid’s feast day is 1 February, which was originally a pre-Christian festival called Imbolc, marking midwinter day, the beginning of spring. Brigid was a fire goddess in ancient Irish mythology. Today St. Brigid is celebrated with a perpetual flame at her shrine in Kildare.
St. Brigid’s Day/Imbolc traditions and customs https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/st-brigids-day-traditions
A folk tradition celebrated on St. Brigid’s Day or Imbolc is Brigid’s Bed. Girls and young unmarried women make a corn doll representing Brigid that is called the Brideog and they make a bed for the Brideog.
the girls and young women gather in one house and stay up all night with the Brideog. The next day they visited by the young men of the community who must ask permission to enter, and must then treat them and the doll with respect.
Brigid is said to walk the earth on Imbolc eve. On St. Brigid Day’s eve people may leave clothing or strips of cloth outside for Brigid to bless when she passes by in the night.
A Brigid of Faughart Festival http://www.brigidoffaughart.ie/ takes places in 2023 from 29 January to 6 February at the An Táin Arts Centre Crowe Street, Dundalk, Co. Louth, St. Brigid’s Shrine and several other locations in co. Louth.
Click here for more information: http://www.brigidoffaughart.ie/festivals/
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The Secrets of The Hill of Faughart: A Saint, a King and 3 Epic Battles!
Here a saint was born. A king was killed. A vanquished chieftain lost his head. Three major battles were fought.
There’s a centuries-old cemetery, a ruined medieval church and a holy well that attracts pilgrims from around the world. There’s even the remains of an iron age Norman-style motte-castle.
Here is the Hill of Faughart.
Located just north of Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland, the Hill of Faughart has a lot of Irish myth and history going on in one fairly small site.
The hill itself is in a natural position to become an important place. Occupied since prehistoric times, Faughart was strategically important for centuries.
Faughart overlooks the Gap of the North/Moyry Pass — eastern Ireland’s main south-north route — Dundalk and its bay, the Cooley mountains and Slieve Gullion to its north. It has a clear view north and east of a large area.
The remains of an iron age, Norman-style earth-and-wood motte-castle stand to northeast of the cemetery, evidence of Faughart’s strategic location.
Even by Irish stands Faughart is steeped in history. It is the birthplace of St. Brigid, 451 AD. It is the burial place High King of Ireland Edward Bruce who was killed near here 14 October 1318.
St. Brigid is Ireland’s female patron saint. Sharing a name with a popular Celtic pagan goddess, Brigid is the bridge between paganism and Irish Christianity. Few historical facts are known about St. Brigid’s life, but she is an extremely popular saint both in Ireland and around the world.
There are three sites related to St. Brigid at the Hill of Faughart. The most significant site is St. Brigid’s Holy Well.
The holy well attracts pilgrims who believe the well’s water has healing powers. The second is St. Brigid’s Bed, said to be the remains of a hut where she slept. The third site is St. Brigid’s Pillar.
This site appears to be the remains of the base of a round tower that once existed there. In the center of the circle is a piece of a broken Celtic high cross. A church has existed on the Faughart since at least the 4th century and monastery once existed there. The ruined church in the graveyard dates from the 12th century.
A rag tree grows above the holy well. Pilgrims leave various votive offerings, often strips of cloths or rags, in hopes of healing ailments or being granted answers to prayers.
Faughart was at the center of three significant battles. In 248 AD, a battle was fought by Cormac Ulfada, High King of Ireland, against Storno (Starno), king of Lochlin (Scandinavia). Ulfada prevailed.
Legend has it that the defeated Storno was allowed to sail home to Scandinavia. https://books.google.com/books?id=NSE…
In 732 AD, Áed Allán, king of Ireland, fought a battle with Áed Róin, king of Ulaid, over what amounted to an insult to a parish controlled by a powerful bishop[. 2]https://books.google.com/books?id=NSE…
Áed Róin was vanquished and wound up having his head cut off on The Stone of Decapitation (Cloch-an-chommaigh) in the doorway of the church of Faughart. A number of other chieftains in Áed Róin’s army were also killed.
Today there are several stones near the entrance of church. It was unclear when we visited which stone was THE Stone of Decapitation. If you know the answer please let us know in the comments.
Perhaps the most significant Battle of Faughart was fought 14 October 1318 between Hiberno-Norman forces led by John de Bermingham, 1st Earl of Louth, and Edmund Butler, Earl of Carrick and his Scots-Irish army commanded by Edward Bruce.
Bruce was the brother of Robert Bruce, King of Scots, Edward Bruce has been backed as King of Ireland by some Irish chieftains. Butler’s army was defeated. Bruce was killed. His body was quartered and sent to various towns in Ireland. His head was sent to King Edward II in England.
Thus, it is hard to know what, if any parts of Bruce, are actually buried in the grave at Faughart. The Battle of Faughart was part of the First War of Scottish Independence, during a three-year era known as the Irish Bruce Wars. Bruce’s death ended an attempt to revive the High Kingship of Ireland.
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