St Moninne's Well, Killeavy

St Moninne, lived in the years 435 to 518. Her father was Machta, king of the territory stretching from Louth to Armagh. Her mother was Comwi, daughter of one of the northern kings. Tradition has it that St Patrick passing through the lands of Machta paid him a visit. He blessed his wife and baptised their daughter giving her the name of his own sister, Daraerca. He prophesied to her parents that her name would long be remembered. She founded a number of convents in Scotland and England and also founded a monastery of nuns in Faughart, Co. Louth. She later moved to a place near Begerin in Co. Wexford to be under St Ibar, and later still moved to Cill Shleibhe (Killeavy) where she died in the year 518.

On the northern side of the cemetery at Killeavy Old Church there is a very large granite stone measuring seven feet long, five feet wide and about one and a half feet thick. This stone covers the supposed grave of St Moninne and on days when the Pattern (which was the anniversary of the day on which a church had been dedicated to a saint) was celebrated, prayers were said at this spot and the pilgrim continued to her Holy Well further up the mountain, returning to this gravestone for the final prayer.

The Pattern Day of St Moninne was 6th July, but with the coming of persecution to the Catholic faith, these religious ceremonies were banned by law. After the suppression of the Pattern in 1825, the existence of the Holy Well was forgotten about but it was re-discovered by Father James Donnelly, C. C., Meigh in 1880. The inscription on the Shrine at the Well now reads "Tobar Naoimh Blathnaidh". The Pattern was revived in the year 1928 and seems to have survived until 1934. The scene was an historical setting for the Holy Year Pilgrimage on 4th August 1974.

(More information is available on www.killeavy.co.uk )