Paper short abstract:

This study explores the individual and collective rituals performed at holy wells. The individual life cycle of pilgrims is examined in relation to both the personal and church sanctioned official rituals performed in the sacred space. An ethnographic account of the rituals performed at a particular holy well in the west of Ireland will be presented.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this study is to explore ritual action during the year through an ethnographic analysis of the relationships, both individual and collective, with the ritual space of the holy well in Ireland.

Healing is a central feature of the holy well, but ritual actions such as processions, prescribed circumambulations of the sacred space, ingesting water from the well, bathing in the holy water, the leaving of votive offerings, and the removal of certain objects such as stones all underscore the deep relationship between memory, emotion and performance in the making of this sacred space.

This paper will explore how the individual life cycle of pilgrims is bound up with the rituals performed at the holy well. These ritual actions vary from the placing, on a tree beside a well, an item of clothing worn by a sick infant in order to obtain a cure to the leaving of a deceased relative's temporary grave marker at a well to signal the final stage in the grieving process.

Individual and collective devotions at holy wells were, in the past, often discouraged and sometimes banned outright by the church hierarchy. However, the transformation in devotional practices since Vatican II, and the revelations of clerical abuse are some of the factors that have combined to diminish the Catholic Church's political and moral authority in Irish society. Today, in many local communities the church is actively promoting and organising official ceremonies at holy wells as a means of reconnecting with local religious sentiments.