Bridie Goodwin

Sandra: I found that very interesting that the whole lay line all across are interlinked and they all follow all the way to Greece, Spain, it’s all interconnected and you’ll find that the holy wells and the churches and the pilgrimages all marry up. It’s fascinating, so that was my interest, but I’ve played a very low-key part but I knew we had to pin you down.

B: I don’t know now you know when you said it and I’ve been thinking that I didn’t know too much about them and if you had an interest in it you would probably know way more.

S: But the thing about you is you grew up with it and that’s what’s so interesting but it wasn’t a huge thing but it was always there.

B: It was always there yes.

Anon: That’s the beauty of it, they are still there and people still use them, and that’s the draw to them we find fascinating is the draw people have to know about them. And that’s where they built the church…

B: There was a church I think inside in the graveyard over in the corner somewhere.

S: So that’s the only information we have and obviously the reason we’re asking you is that we want people that have all the stories and the folklore that go with it all.

B: Now did ye have this book?

S: Oh right, Fahamore. Do we know about the one in Fahamore? Maharees.

B: There is one in Maharees, yes. When you turn that bad bend there, no this is inside in Fahamore now. You know the pub there, at the sea, it’s coming in next to the wall there, Spillanes, it’s on from that on the left. As far as I know it’s there all the time, but there was a well there because they used to call it ‘the pump’. My mother was from the Maharees and you’d often hear her talking about ‘the pump’.

S: And was it just water or that was healing was it?

B: The man now who wrote that book would be excellent and he has a degree in history.

Anon: Do you know this man who wrote this? (The Land and People of Maharees & Castlegregory A History 1560-1960)

B: I do.

Á: Who is he?

B: His mother is from Sráidbhaile??, Kitty Meehan and his father is from Maharees. And my mother was from Fahamore. Many years ago though. Now I have it written down here a wishing well. Is there a wishing well anywhere? I have heard of a wishing well where people went to the well and made a wish. I know that people go to the well in Castle and they throw money in and make a wish because I’ve seen money in there.

S: Under the wall, and people go and get water from that too. I know that.

Anon: Where is it Sandra?

S: You know where the chemist is, Mary Teehan’s chemist, if you turn left just on the right hand side there’s a well in there. I haven’t got a picture of that one, because I didn’t know that was a holy well.

B: I don’t know if it’s a holy well.

S: But it’s a wishing well.

B: And people call it a wishing well anyway. If people throw money into it…

S: What am I looking for here? Oh there it is. You must have passed that Ann.

(Zooming into photograph)

Á: What well is this now?

B: Castlegregory. We call it a wishing well.

S: I remember you know Máire Dowling, when her mother was alive saying to me that she would get water from that well if they had a fever because it was so cold. But she said ‘don’t be telling Máire that’.

B: The well in Maharees, the pump as my mother used to call it would dry in the summer time, and they would come up to Castle with their ponies and cars and containers (and that’s in that book as well) to collect the water. It was hard living. The holy well then is Killiney, there was a cure for eyes, blindness or sore eyes or whatever in that, and then the well in Gleann na nGealt has lithium in it, do you know that? And that was a cure for mental illness. And is there something on Kerry Radio about these wells now at the moment or coming up? I heard it being mentioned anyway.

S: So what’s the story that you had growing up about where the holy well was and how it was moved?

B: Oh somebody washed their clothes in it and it suddenly moved. And they went down there to wash their clothes.

Á: This is the well in Killiney is it?

Anon: And it moved across the road was it?

B: I’d say it’s a well down the field isn’t it?

S: And then they put that stone cross up where the well used to be. That was the story I heard.

B: I don’t know but that cross is there as long as I can remember anyway.

Anon: Is there a story about the cross being moved, no?

B: Never heard. Now the other thing for Maharees was that this Kate Breen lived back here in the presbytery. Her brother was Canon Breen and they came from Killarney and she was in the Council in Tralee, she was a member of the Council. And she got the water on tap from Maharees and the old man anyway came in in the evening, they’d have ordinary water but the wife hadn’t brought … there was only the ordinary water there and he was very thirsty and he took a big drink of it, ‘Oh God bless you,’ he said, ‘Kate Breen’.

S: And Bridie what about the pattern days then? Did that involve the wells?

B: I think they used to make a trip to the wells, a round to the wells on pattern day, in Killiney of course. Again before my time. It must be well over a hundred years ago. You have a lot of information about it because I’d forget that now. Now this Kate Breen was a great woman for this place, she got houses and things back in Cloghane, and this Canon Breen had a motor car when there were no motor cars and he had Tom Doyle to drive for him. He had a chauffeur but the chauffeur would work in the church as well in Castle. And Canon Breen would have a different Mass, he had a singing Mass so he was sort of before his time.

S: It followed some of his traditions anyway, the car and the chauffeur and the whole lot.

B: And had ye the well in Tullig? And I have very little on that and I might be able to get it or ye might be able to get it. There’s a well in Tullig along the main road before you come to the quarry. Do you know where the quarry is? And it was called Bidín the Tae’s Well.

S: What does that mean?

B: Her house was near it.

Á: Where is Tullig?

B: On the road to Tralee.

S: And it was across from that?

B: No, not across really.

Á: On the main road.

B: It’s a small little road going down on the main road. Do you know Euge Kane?. You probably do. He died. Well after passing his house.

S: The little road down. There’s a stream down there.

B: There is. The well is at the very top. I don’t know whether ye can go in there or not. It’s overgrown.

S: I didn’t know about that one either. So were they healing or were they just for water?

B: I suppose they were just for water. They wouldn’t all be healing.

S: So it was really the stories around Killiney and around the pattern days that we were hoping to hear.

B: I never remember the rounds in Killiney graveyard.

S: So they were a good while ago.

B: Because I’m 86 so 80 years ago say. I would remember, I would.

S: So what was the pattern day then in Castlegregory?

B: When the village was in Killiney at one time and the pattern day was held there so I suppose that’s why the rounds were there then. It kind of makes sense.

Á: Do we know when the rounds…

B: The 15^th of August.

Á: And what’s the name of that well? Is there a saint going with that well?

S: I think it’s Enda!

B: Yes because Killiney.

Á: Cill Aighne, Enda’s well, Enda’s church, yes.

S: So the pattern day that you remember then as a child would be Castle.

B: Yes, yes. And I think at one time that the pattern was held across the lake here.

Á: Which lake is that?

B: Lough Gill.

S: And was it just Mass you had for pattern day?

B: Yes. And Mass wouldn’t have been always, wherever the pattern was there would have been Mass.

S: Because they came from Kilorglin to Castle didn’t they? Puck Fair is the 13^th.

B: Yes yes, the travellers or the tents or whatever.

Á: So what did you do on the pattern day then? Were you a child at that time?

B: Yes I would have been a child when it was in the street and I would cycle to the pattern or walk to the pattern. My mother would go to Mass and she would take in the pattern as well and I suppose when I was small that’s what I would do too. When I was going on my own then I would cycle over to the pattern in the evening and there’s a Pearse Memorial Hall there and there would be a dance there, the pattern evening.

S: So it was a big event!

B: It was a big event yes and the Mass of course, and we had a nice priest from… he lived down the way to Maharees, Magharabeg, Father Paddy Joe Connor, but he’d give a great sermon about the pattern. The pattern day, he’d be one for the pattern always and he’d have a grand sermon about the pattern and all the various things.

S: So people when you were growing up would they still talk about going to the healing wells for healing? Did people think of them as a cure?

B: I don’t remember but I know someone (this is lately) that had trouble with his… he went to the well anyway for water and I don’t know did he have (what’s bipolar?).

S: That’s a mental health issue yes.

B: I think he has bipolar. I think he went there for the water. I think it’s a cure for mental health.

Á: That was Gleann na nGealt.

B: Yes.

Anon: I was actually there myself a couple of days ago, I went down because I have an interest in that well. I call in on it every so often just to see because people put the beads and things on the trees. It looks beautiful now at the moment.

B: Imagine I never saw it. Is there a tree near it?

Anon: There’s a tree yes, there’s a tree that grows beside that well and the Council cut the tree back about three or four years ago. But the tree has actually regrown and people have started to put things back on it again.

B: Is it far up?

Anon: You know the turn for Sandy Bay, so if you go right and you go up that road it’s maybe two miles up from there.

B: I must go up there next Sunday.

Á: It’s on the side of the road so it’s easy to get to.

B: Ye saw that so.

Á: We did.

B: And ye didn’t see the well in Tullig!

Á: We didn’t, we didn’t know about it.

B: And the well in Castle and the well in Maharees.

S: I didn’t know there was one in the Maharees, I must have a look there at the book when you are finished.

B: And Kate Breen that got the water from Maharees, her picture is in there too.

S: She was a great character for a woman in Ireland way back then.

B: Yes way back then.

S: Yes way back then to be able to achieve so much.

B: Are you into this?

Á: I am absolutely passionate about it, and we have a café back home in Gráig which we open in the summer and I tell everybody in the café, my staff, I say, ‘are you going to ask me about the well, I’m gone for the day’! It’s very interesting, it’s lovely and we seem to find, whichever way you go to, you find that somebody was there before you, left something.

S: Except for the one in Killiney. We didn’t find anything, we found it very challenging to find that one because it’s literally in the middle of a field and there’s drainage works down there as well which can confuse you a bit but I think we found it.

Anon: We found it allright, we found the spring of it anyway.

B: Rosarie knows exactly I suppose where it is, does she I wonder?

S: So a lot of them are just forgotten really?

B: Ah they are of course. When they got the water sure they didn’t need them anymore.

S: And they got medicine, doctors and the old cures I suppose.

B: Yes, the old cures.

Anon: Just for me old wells I felt there would be a sense of community, people would meet there and chat there and talk.

B: They would, now the well in Castle there is a river across from it, did ye see that, there’s water across the road from it. But the people of the village used to bring their clothes there to wash them because they had no water but I’ve never heard anything, the well I’m sure was not ever used for clothes, because it would be the main water.

S: And it’s kind of the way it’s all been built, it’s obviously been there for a long time. Some people are still getting their water there. Quite recently.

B: Yes they go because it’s the second best water in Ireland, they say. Did ye hear that, ye did? Is it the second or the first?

Á: But a lot of people don’t want the fluoride and all that now.

B: And we have a lovely river back there, just back by the gate and you know maybe that water would be better for us to drink.

S: I don’t know, I just think of those cows and sheep wandering through it puts me off.

B: Our cows go for a drink allright to it and they walk in through it but sure it runs away again.

Á: Is it the Killiney well that moved so because somebody washed their clothes?

B: It is.

Anon: The clothes were washed in the holy well.

B: Yes I suppose when it wasn’t the graveyard and the church and the Protestant Church is there as well. The Catholic Church was there one time, there was a Catholic Church up in the corner, supposed to be anyway.

Anon: Over on the right as you go up into the graveyard, is it?

B: Yes. But I suppose there’s nothing left there, you know, because there’s a new wall around it. Now are ye ready? Will I make the tea?

Á: Before you do that Bridie, I’d love to know if you could say what your name is, and where you live, and a bit about who you are and that’s lovely, and you look gorgeous. Yes you look beautiful.

B: And I have no makeup!

Á: It’s the light coming in the window that’s doing a nice job of it.

B: The Killiney water. My name is Bridie Goodwin, and I was originally Bridie Deane and I lived here always because I’m an only child and my grandfather bought this farm here and my father farmed it for a good number of years and then I married. Robert is from Maharees and that’s my story I suppose.

Á: He is Robert Goodwin, and is he anything to boats Goodwins? Boats and sailing?

B: He would be related yes, and I would be related to those Goodwins as well because my grandaunt was married to his granduncle or something like that.

Á: And I heard you got a new car!

B: Well it’s a year old. While I’m able to drive I might as well enjoy it.

Á: It’s gorgeous.

B: It is, it’s lovely isn’t it. It’s a lovely colour.

Á: Yes my car has done 380 kilometres and more. That’s why I’m looking at your car now.

B: Kia, it’s lovely and it isn’t too big. Well I have a son here at home.

Á: He’s Ciarán is he?

B:  He’s Kieran and ye were talking to him, he lives in Tralee and Brendan is the man here on the farm. He’s not married and I’m afraid he won’t get married now either.

S: Unclaimed treasure!

B: Maybe he’s as well off, who knows?

Á: And is Kieran married?

B: Kieran is married, he has no family, he’s married to a Tralee girl.

Á: So two sons you had was it?

B: Three sons, I have a son in America, Pádraig, and I have a daughter in Limerick Regional. She’s a nurse in the Regional in Limerick and I have a daughter in the Health Board in Tralee, in the hospital’s health board actually but she’s working at the moment in the hospital. She’s a secretary in the hospital so that’s all of them.

Á: They are all around you so except for the one in America. Where is Pádraig so?

B: Pádraig is in New York.

Á: I have a son there too. My baby!

B: And they are allright in New York.

Á: I think they are.

B: Pádraig is married and he has two grown up a boy and a girl, and the girl doesn’t come home at all, but the boy does, and he was home now in September I suppose, Anthony.

Á: And does he love coming home?

B: He does, he’s gone to Australia now. He’s not married either, but he’s 30ish I suppose.

Á: That’s your grandchild then that’s 30. You have great-grandchildren as well so, have you?

B: No. Pádraig is married and he would be the eldest and his family.

Á: What’s the name of this town?

B: Killiney, this is Killiney.

Á: So we are near the church so here.

B: You are near the church, look you can see it look, out the window. Isn’t there a grand steeple on it?

Á: And is it still in use?

B: It is. Were ye in there?

Á: Not today. This is your kingdom isn’t it Ann, this is your place isn’t it?

Ann: It has taken a while, but it has become my place.

B: You’re from where, Ann?

Ann: I’m from Limerick, and Brendan then would have been Castleisland you see. We used to bring the kids back here on holidays all the time when they were small. We loved it.

B: What part of Limerick?

Ann: I’m from Greystones which would be out the Ennis Road side, near the GAA grounds.

B: Máire now lives in Patrickswell on this side so it’s very near.

Ann: We lived in Adare as well for a while too.

B: Adare is lovely. I was at the garden party there in Adare Manor one time.

Ann: Oh I remember the garden fetes they used to have them. That was before the Manor was done up as the hotel the first time.

Á: Sandra where are you from so?

S: I’m a blow in, I’m from South London, Wimbledon, and I came here 36 years ago, married a Dingle man.  I said I’d come and give it a go for a year because I’d done all my partying and all my London life and I just loved it so I’m still here.

Á: And I know you told me about wells and when you were young and what you used to do with wells with your mother. You were talking about that at one time I think.

S: Oh the wishing wells yes. We just had wishing wells. There was no holy attachment to the wells that I was aware of but I was brought up with no religion so I wouldn’t know but the one thing I found very interesting…

(Knock at the door)

B: Máire you are just in time. This is Máire my daughter.

S: But one of the things I did discover was the lay lines are all involved in holy wells.