The practice of visiting holy wells for health and spirituality goes back to pagan times. Ireland has approximately 3, holy wells, so in order to visit one it would generally be under a twenty-mile distance, which would have been considered local.
Many cures were specific to places, which brought about cultural exchange and social support. Kilgeever Holy Well is situated on a rocky outcrop, just outside the town of Louisburgh in Co. The site contains a holy well, a ruined church and a graveyard and is associated with early Christian times. Monasteries were possibly built next to wells due to their established public veneration, which the orders wanted to take advantage of.
Holy Well sites existed by word of mouth and the reputation of holy wells was enhanced by communities, for example, if someone in the community returned cured or improved, its reputation would be reinforced. Local patterns were later taken over by larger pilgrimages under the supervision of the Catholic Church such as Croagh Patrick.
Philip Dixon Hardy a nineteenth-century poet, printer and publisher of the Dublin Penny Journal, questioned how a god could delight in the misery of his followers, with pilgrims performing circuits on cut and bruised knees.
The Catholic Church was against this practice due to drunkenness, revelry and faction fighting on pattern days. Some saw this practice as superstitious and ignorant.
