A Brief History of Our Lady’s Well

Introduction

Our Lady’s Well is located roughly a mile outside of Athenry’s town centre in Kingsland. The area has served as an annual pilgrimage site in Ireland for centuries since an apparition is said to have occurred there. This blog post will give a brief overview of the well with respect to the apparition itself, the pilgrimages, and some of the recent structural developments to the site. Lastly, a brief section will be included to mention miscellaneous information which fits less neatly into the narrative structure of this blog post.

An Apparition at the Well

Unfortunately, no written source of the time can substantiate the claims of an apparition. Our knowledge of the supposed apparition comes from documents such as the Annals of Connaught which released significantly after 1249. According to these sources, the apparition of Mary occurred after the Battle of Athenry where she is said to have appeared to some wounded Anglo-Norman soldiers after they were forced to fight on their holy day despite their request of a temporary ceasefire against the Irish^i,ii,iii.

The Pilgrimage

For those making a pilgrimage in the area, there are a few main rituals which individuals tend to make. The primary pilgrimage made on the 15^th of August consists of walking 15 laps of the area to pray at each piece of religious iconography in the site. Some will pick up 15 pebbles on starting their pilgrimage and will drop one pebble at the entrance to (or in) the well on each lap of the area—each time saying a decade of the rosary. Historically, people would drink water from the well. However more recently, individuals tend to use the water on cloth or on the body as distinct from drinking it^iv. On occasion, some people going on pilgrims would take of their shoes to walk barefoot through the area, washing their feet and putting back on their shoes on their departure from the site^v.

Separate to the well itself, visitors might see that the tree beside it often has cloth wrapped onto it. As an Ash Tree, it had significance to both the Celtic and early Irish people due to its believed associations with both fertility and wellbeing. This tradition has continued into Catholic Ireland where now, people will take some cloth which covered an ill part of their body and place it on the tree as an offering. Sometimes, these cloths represent a worry instead of an illness^vi.

Activity Over Time

While the site sees frequent usage, the main day of pilgrimage is of course, the 15^th of August^vii. These pilgrimages have taken place for roughly 775 years^viii.

At present, the pilgrimage on that day consists of a procession where people walk from Athenry to the site. The Connacht Tribune released an article in late 2025 saying that the events of the day were less “colourful” than past years^ix. This corresponds with many other sources over the decades which describe a lull from the 50s and 60s period.

Structural Developments

Many pieces of religious iconography have been constructed over the centuries. In terms of more recent development however, the first structures of note are the “Calvary” sculpture of Jesus on the cross in 1932 and the grotto which was built in 1954 to commemorate the Marian year^x. Following the establishment of the Lady’s Well Committee, redevelopment efforts were made to improve the overall site around 1988^xi. Then, the Millenium Park surrounding the Well would be built and officially opened for the 15^th of August 1999^xii.

Miscellaneous Information

Some of the works considered were accessed in the Athenry library. As “reference only” books, those interested in reading into other sources would be wise to visit their library^xiii.

On the wall wrapped around the well, a “weeper” is included. This is a small statue situated on the pillar to the left of the entrance. The weeper is believed to have been moved here from either the Dominican friary or from St. Mary’s parish church. Depicting the Pieta, in it, the virgin Mary is holding the body of Jesus in a more upright angle than the continental style where Jesus is cradled in her arms^xiv. The weeper would have originally served as a late medieval tomb and was likely enclosed either in a wall tomb or free-standing box tomb given its relatively good condition^xv.

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¹ A. Martin Freeman, ed., Annála Connacht. The Annals of Connacht, A.D. 1224-1544 (Dublin Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1944), 197–101, http://archive.org/details/annalaconnachtan0000unse_b2g9.

² Monsie Kennedy, ‘Lady’s Well’, O’Regan’s Athenry, 5 February 2021, https://athenry.org/record/ladys-well-358/.

³ Dr Christy Cunniffe, ‘Lasy’s Well, Athenry – Dr Christy Cunniffe Interviewed by Sally-Ann Barrett’, interview by Sally-Ann Barrett, Galway County Heritage Office, 15 August 2021, Online, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3EHZitoOaU&t=2s.

⁴ Cunniffe, ‘Lasy’s Well, Athenry – Dr Christy Cunniffe Interviewed by Sally-Ann Barrett’.

⁵ Evelyn Hoare, LADY’S WELL ATHENRY — HISTORIC ORIGIN, n.d., accessed 28 April 2026, https://athenryparishheritage.com/ladys-well-athenry-historic-origin/.

⁶ Cunniffe, ‘Lasy’s Well, Athenry – Dr Christy Cunniffe Interviewed by Sally-Ann Barrett’.

⁷ ‘Ladies Well Committee’, St. Mary’s Parish: Athenry & Newcastle, accessed 28 January 2026, https://athenryparish.ie/ladies-well-committee/.

⁸ Editors of the Lady’s Well Committee, ‘Lady’s Well’, Lady’s Well Committee, n.d., sect. Lady’s Well is a popular place of pilgramage every year on August 15th. The above is from a display present at the site.

⁹ ‘Athenry Embraces Lady Day with Pilgrims’ Walk to Holy Well’, Connacht Tribune, 24 August 2025, https://connachttribune.ie/?p=220539.

¹⁰ Editors of Lady’s Well Committee, ‘Lady’s Well: Athenry’, Plaque, Lady’s Well Committee, 1999.

¹¹ Ann Healy, Athenry: A Brief History and Guide (1989, n.d.), 36.

¹² Kennedy, ‘Lady’s Well’.

¹³ I would just like to thank my father Anthony Conneely for finding these sources for me while I was out of the country and in the process, was unable visit the library in person.

¹⁴ Editors of the Lady’s Well Committee, ‘Lady’s Well’, Lady’s Well Committee, n.d., sect. 2: The Medieval Pieta. The above is from a display present at the site.

¹⁵ ‘Tomb Weeper Athenry’, Galway Community Archaeology, 11 June 2017, https://field-monuments.galwaycommunityheritage.org/content/archaeology/tomb-weeper-athenry.