Keenahene & Loughan

St. Ciaran's Well, Castlekeeran, Kells

St. Ciaran's Well, Castlekeeran, Kells

Courtesy of Meath County Library

St. Ciaran's Well, Castlekeeran, Kells
Courtesy of Meath County Library

St. Ciaran's Well, Castlekeeran, Kells

St. Ciaran's Well, Castlekeeran, Kells

Courtesy of Meath County Library

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Keenahene

This holy well in Keenahene is near the Ballyfore road. It is situated on top of a steep hill.

The water flows through a large stone into the well and the surplus water flows into the Stoneyford river. The water from this well cures tooth­ache and headache.

There was a big whitethorn bush over the well and long ago a big spoon or scoop was hung on the whitethorn bush which overhung the well.

People came there regularly to drink the water and to bottle it to take away for use at home.

Long ago they used to hold a Pattern Day in July, and a great number of people used to gather there.

Tradition tells that a monastery stood near this spot some hundreds of years ago, and stones, believed to be the remains of the monastery, have been turned up during ploughing.

St. Ciaran's Well, Castlekeeran, Kells

"The great ash tree to which Sir William Wilde refers, and which is shown in early sketches, decayed and fell in the present century. Wilde refers to a curious story that about ten years earlier, that is about 1839, a report spread in the locality that the ash tree was bleeding and that thousands of people flocked to the place expecting to witness the phenomenon!...In the 1880s some restorations and improvements were carried out by the Farrell family of Castle Kieran; a protective railing was erected around the well; seats were provided and an entrance foot-bridge constructed over the little stream which flows by the roadside." Ríocht na Midhe, 1957, p.31 Castle Kieran, O'Connell, Philip, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Courtesy of Meath County Library

St. Ciaran's Well, Castlekeeran, Kells
Courtesy of Meath County Library

St. Ciaran's Well, Castlekeeran, Kells

"The great ash tree to which Sir William Wilde refers, and which is shown in early sketches, decayed and fell in the present century. Wilde refers to a curious story that about ten years earlier, that is about 1839, a report spread in the locality that the ash tree was bleeding and that thousands of people flocked to the place expecting to witness the phenomenon!...In the 1880s some restorations and improvements were carried out by the Farrell family of Castle Kieran; a protective railing was erected around the well; seats were provided and an entrance foot-bridge constructed over the little stream which flows by the roadside." Ríocht na Midhe, 1957, p.31 Castle Kieran, O'Connell, Philip, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Courtesy of Meath County Library

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Loughan

The parish of Carnaross is com­posed of the three mediaeval parishes of Castle Kieran, Loughan and Dulane. Carnaross is not even men­tioned as a townland earlier than 1837, and even then John O'Donovan in the Ordnance Survey Field Name Books, refers to it as "a group of houses (two of them public houses) called Carnaross." It was, however, the site of a thatched chapel, (on the same site as the present church), and afterwards, when stage coaches came, it grew in importance and, because it was situated on the main Dublin-Enniskillen route, it soon boasted two inns.

The townland of Loughan be­longed to the Mapes of Maperath before the Cromwellian plantation; afterwards it was one of the many grants allotted to an officer named James Stopford. Dean Cogan mentions the holy well dedicated to St. Anne. In de­scribing Castle Kieran he notes:

"Convenient to the termon cross, on the south side, there is a green grave marking the resting place of a priest, name now unknown, on which, at interments, the coffin is deposited, while the De Profundis is being intoned."