How big to you think that island is? It’s smaller than the long island next to it, but still, given its influence on world cultures, it must be at least as big as California, right?
No. The island of Ireland is the size of Indiana, about 300 miles long and 175 miles wide. California, on the other hand, is 900 miles long and 250 miles wide.
Ireland is tiny. And yet, like a cherished friend, it grows bigger and more interesting the longer I live here. Like a good friendship, I seem to be a better person to be in it.
I haven’t even visited every county.
And I will never be able to meet but a small fraction of the holy wells. Recently, I donated to the Fairy Council of Ireland, and they sent me a database of Irish holy wells. 
Here are the known wells in Donegal and the northwest. Many of them are now destroyed, because Donegal is a rough country, long exploited by people from the long island who feared the gentle Irish spirituality of water, land, and sky. The colonialists found their God in a whitewashed rectangular church, and the Pound Sterling everywhere else.
When I first uploaded the map to Holy Wells I looked for the well closest to my house, Ague Well in Ards Forest Park. But it’s not on the map, even though it is signed and in a public park. So even that crowded map above is incomplete.
The Ague Well is said to have been a cure for ague, which was probably malaria, but I’m thinking of starting a rumor that it cures covid.
A two years ago, before the first chemo session, I walked to Ague Well. I knew I would be too tired to walk that far until I was recovered. I made a little movie of it to take home with me.
Now I walk there often. When we can travel again, I’d like to find some “eye wells.” Many Irish wells cure eye disease because “eye complaints” are common when you spend your life sleeping in a smoky cottage.
The chemo drugs messed up my eye oil glands so they water all the time. Finding eye wells might not cure my complaint, but tromping around, asking strangers, “Is there an eye well near here?” and hearing stories will make me a better person.
A friend of mine is planning a trip to the holy well at Lourdes, France, next spring, and I hope to join her. She needs the sacred waters for a real miracle, a cure for Crohnes disease. I wouldn’t waste my prayers at such a giant shrine on my leaking eyes, but will try for a bigger miracle I can’t find in Ireland. I’ll pray to get my eye brows back.
Each X a holy well, the numbers its latitude and longitude. That’s a map of all known wells, even those that somebody destroyed. Because a well must be destroyed, they don’t just die. The Fairy Council of Ireland hopes people will find their local wells and cherish them. But they don’t make it too easy. The sacred journey is the destination.
When I first uploaded the map to Holy Wells I looked for the well closest to my house, Ague Well in Ards Forest Park. But it’s not on the map, even though it is signed and in a public park. So even that crowded map above is incomplete.
Now I walk there often. When we can travel again, I’d like to find some “eye wells.” Many Irish wells cure eye disease because “eye complaints” are common when you spend your life sleeping in a smoky cottage.
The chemo drugs messed up my eye oil glands so they water all the time. Finding eye wells might not cure my complaint, but tromping around, asking strangers, “Is there an eye well near here?” and hearing stories will make me a better person.
A friend of mine is planning a trip to the holy well at Lourdes, France, next spring, and I hope to join her. She needs the sacred waters for a real miracle, a cure for Crohnes disease. I wouldn’t waste my prayers at such a giant shrine on my leaking eyes, but will try for a bigger miracle I can’t find in Ireland. I’ll pray to get my eye brows back.
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