From A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland 1906
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CHAPTER VI....continued
Wells.—Wells have at all times been held in veneration in Ireland by both pagans and Christians; and we have seen that many of the pagan Irish worshipped wells as gods. Some of these were blessed and consecrated to Christian uses by the early saints, of which a very interesting instance is related in Adamnan's Life of St. Columkille. The saint, traversing Scotland, came to a fountain, to which the pagans paid divine honours. But he rescued it from heathenism, and blessed it, so that it was ever after revered as a holy well. In this manner hundreds of the heathen wells were taken over to Christianity and sanctified by the early saints, so that they came to be even more venerated by the Christians than they had been by the pagans. Most of the early preachers of the Gospel established their humble foundations—many of them destined to grow in after-years into great religious and educational institutions—beside fountains, whose waters at the same time supplied the daily wants of the little communities, and served for the baptism of converts.
There are now innumerable holy wells scattered all over the country, most of them called by the names of the noble old missionaries who spent their lives in converting the pagans or in ministering to the spiritual needs of the Christian people of the several localities. In this manner most of our early saints became associated with wells. The practice began with St. Patrick, who, we are told, founded a church at Magh Slecht, in the present County Cavan: "and there [to this day is reverenced] Patrick's well, in which he baptised many."
A well is sometimes met with containing one lone inhabitant—a single trout or salmon—which is always to be seen swimming about in its tiny dominion: and sometimes there are two. They are usually tame; and the people hold them in great respect, and tell many wonderful legends about them. This pretty custom is of old standing, for it originated with the early Irish saints—even with St. Patrick himself. The Tripartite Life states, regarding the well of Aghagower in Mayo, that "Patrick left two salmon alive in the well." The same custom prevailed in the Scottish western islands.
The usual name for a well, both in the old and in the modern Irish language, is tobar [tubber].
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Truelove's Journal: A Bookshop Novella
From a sad, comfortless childhood Giles Truelove developed into a reclusive and uncommunicative man whose sole passion was books. For so long they were the only meaning to his existence. But when fate eventually intervened to have the outside world intrude upon his life, he began to discover emotions that he never knew he had.
This is a story for the genuine booklover, penned by an Irish bookseller under the pseudonym of Ralph St. John Featherstonehaugh.
Annals of the Famine in Ireland
Annals of the Famine in Ireland, by Asenath Nicholson, still has the power to shock and sadden even though the events described are ever-receding further into the past. When you read, for example, of the poor widowed mother who was caught trying to salvage a few potatoes from her landlord's field, and what the magistrate discovered in the pot in her cabin, you cannot help but be appalled and distressed.
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger
This book, the prequel to Annals of the Famine in Ireland cannot be recommended highly enough to those interested in Irish social history. The author, Mrs Asenath Nicholson, travelled from her native America to assess the condition of the poor in Ireland during the mid 1840s. Refusing the luxury of hotels and first class travel, she stayed at a variety of lodging-houses, and even in the crude cabins of the very poorest. Not to be missed!
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Henry Ford Jones' book, first published in 1915 by Princeton University, is a classic in its field. It covers the history of the Scotch-Irish from the first settlement in Ulster to the American Revolutionary period and the foundation of the country.
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
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