Thanks to Maurice Dodd for this information on St. Moling’s Well.
Granite slab covering St Moling's Well, Kilmolin
St Moling’s well is situated in the north west corner of what is now a golf course on the Powerscourt Estate, at Kilmolin, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow. The townland of Kilmolin is named after the well. With the building of the golf course, the well opening had to be covered, and presently all that can be seen is a flat granite slab, but locals remember the well being open.
In the early nineteenth century the then Viscount had the idea of bringing the water from the well to the house as it was found to be very pure. However about half way to the house the water sank into the ground having hit a gravel bank, the Viscount then decided to pipe the water from the well. This feature can be seen on the 1840 OSI map.
OS map showing St Molings Well
The saint who the well is dedicated to is Saint Moling, born in Kerry in 614, he was a monk in Glendalough and went on to be the second bishop of Ferns. He then established a monastery [St Mullins] in Carlow where he is renowned for cutting by hand a mile long mill race to service his community. Other areas named for St Moling are Mullinakill in Co Kilkenny, Timolin in Co Kildare and Monamolin in Co Wexford. St Moling died in 696 and his feast day is in June.
Thank you to Don Clarke of Powerscourt. Patsy Byrne of Kilmolin and www.irishcatholicsaints.com
Like most of the children growing up so close to Powerscourt it was like a magnet, we only had to hop over the wall and we had the best playground in the world, I spent a lot of time shooting Indians and bad guys in the woods when I was a lad. I passed the well many many times over the years and it’s sad to see it reduced to this, hopefully when the golf course is gone the well will be still there.
what condition was the well in? can you describe how it was as a boy?
As far as I can remember it was in a section of pine trees, the type that are closely planted together. We would have to bend down to get to the well, the branches were quite low and there wasn’t much light getting through. The well itself wasn’t very big or deep, just a hole in the ground. It didn’t really have any stones or anything around it, We often lay down and drank from it, this would have been in the 1960s
We live just over the boundary from this well at Kilmolin and pull our water from our own well. I must agree with the Viscount that the taste from this water (or lack of it) is superb. It comes out so clear, the bath water can hardly be seen. We had it tested for purity, and although slightly acidic, it is perfectly potable. One assumes the filtering through sphagnum and granite gives it this character?