School: Port Omna (B) (roll number 2174)

Location:
Portumna, Co. Galway
Teacher:
Seán Ó Broin
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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0057, Page 0187

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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0057, Page 0187

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  1. XML School: Port Omna (B)
  2. XML Page 0187
  3. XML “Holy Wells”

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  1. About six miles from the town of Portumna in the village of Abbey a holy well is situated. It is supposed to be hundreds of years old. It is open every day. Around the well four trees are growing, and when the people go there they have to go on their knees around the trees. Once a man was drawing water in a pail when he slipped and fell in. He's son came out to look for him and he went over to the well to see was the bucket full and to his surprise he found the bucket in the well. Off he went to tell his mother who came back with him. She sent her son for to tell the villagers that her husband had disappeared; and when they came back they found the body.
    In the well there are some small white stones and every Christmas these stones are taken up and washed. Every year a large crowd gather at the well and do the rounds. First the people go around the wall four times then they drink a cup of well water and put some on their faces. After that they
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. events
      1. events (by time of year) (~11,476)
    Language
    English
    Collector
    J. Frances Starr
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Abbey Street, Co. Galway
    Informant
    Mrs Donoghue
    Gender
    Female
    Age
    70
    Address
    Loughrea, Co. Galway