Abstract
The Irish holy wells of St. Brigid are spaces where ritual and worship are informed by, and intertwined with, the surrounding sacred landscape. Through the use of formal analysis, iconography, iconology, and ritual theory the question of how visual culture, ritual, and landscape create sacred space at the holy wells of St. Brigid in Ireland will be explored. Holy wells are worship spaces that are thought to be remnants from an ancient culture, the pre-Christian Celts. The set of movements that one performs while moving through the landscape are a blend of native and ecclesiastical traditions, resulting in a syncretic prayer experience. Ritual is an integral part of any holy well experience and it can involve not just the holy well, but also sacred trees and stones. Additionally, the figure we know as St. Brigid is a composite character, a mixture of Celtic pre- Christian and early Christian cultures. Both strands of syncretism co-exist together, providing new symbolic meaning to St. Brigid as a person and the holy wells associated with her. The holy wells of St. Brigid still maintain a place in Irish religion and spirituality today, although some have been lost to time or abandoned. I have found mention of one hundred holy wells dedicated to St. Brigid in Ireland throughout the course of my research, but this paper will focus on four sites, chosen because of their popularity, the fact that they are still venerated today, and because the greatest amount of information focuses on these holy wells: one in Faughart, County Louth; two in Tully, County Kildare, near Kildare Town; and one in Ballysteen, County Clare, near the town of Liscannor.