The Literal:
There's a lot of talk about wanting to connect with our ancestors. This often comes into conflict with an entirely understandable desire to distance ourselves from the Church. However this leads to a very harmful fixation on the ancient, the parts of our history we know the least about, the people we're the least connected to; and skipping over the dozens of generations in between that we have much more in common with and can learn about most easily.
But there is a thread that can link us in the here and now, through our Christian ancestors, all the way back to our Pre-Christian ancestors. That thread is the Holy Wells.
There's a misunderstanding about the Christianisation of pre-Christian beliefs. People think it's always top-down, with the clergy schemeing to to convert people by reframing their beliefs. But for the most part evidence indicates it's usually the other way around.
It's usally bottom-up, with people refusing to abandon their old practices and traditions after conversion much to the frustration of the clergy, who will often spend centuries trying to convince them to stop their “heathen practices” until eventually one side or the other finally gives up.
This kind of conflict was common in Ireland for centuries, with the ordinary people practicing what was essentially a form of Jesus-Flavoured Paganism while the priests impotently raged agains it. Sometimes the ordinary people would win, the clergy would give up resisting and would begin to take part in the practice themselves.
This is almost certainly what happened with Holy Wells.
Holy Wells are sacred spots in the landscape associated with specific saints and the curing of specific ailments.
Each Holy Well usually cures a specific thing, there would be one Holy Well for headaches, another for burns, another for toothache, one for being the wrong gender, etc, etc.
People would travel to these wells at all times of year for cures, and sometimes would take some water home so as to have the cure handy if it was needed.
Holy Wells are also often believed to be homes to unusual fish or other aquatic animals and the presence and happiness of this creature is often associated with the effectiveness of the well's cure.
Its likely these creatures are originaly a pre-Christian belief and were the original patrons of these wells before they became associated with Saints.
While the Priests did start holding masses at Holy Wells at specific times of year in order to honour the associated Saint, they strongly disapproved of the ordinary people having their own gatherings at the wells unsupervised by the clergy.
These gatherings were called Patterns, a term coming from Patron as in Patron Saint. Patterns would usually begin on the day honouring the Saint associated with that well and could last up to three days. They involved singing, dancing, stortyelling, playing games, feasting, drinking and sometimes trade and markets.
Here we see the divide between the Christianity of the Clergy and the Christianity of the ordinary people. Both honouring the same site at the same date, but in vastly different ways, with the Clergy condemning the practices of the ordinary people.
Even if Patterns Holy and Wells aren't pre-Christian in origin, the practice of these gatherings still shows how even our more recent ancestors would rebel against the priests. They are still an example of communities coming together in an act of defiance against the church.
And they are still a way that we can connect with and become more aware of our landscape and our people, to connect with our ancestors and even with each other.
Find your local Holy Well, visit it often; weekly, monthly yearly, whatever you can manage. Bring your friends, build your own little practices, clean the place up.
Connect.
Figurative:
But Holy wells are not the only gathering places. We have created more and more down through the years.
The pub, the music venue, the arts collective, the public library, even vintage and steam rallies, farmers markets, the ploughing championships.
These are centres of gathering, participation and repetition. More legitimate sources of folklore, more legitimate wellsprings than any curated anthology or private business that bars entry.
These gathering places can even be more ephemeral and not tied to specific locations, trad sessions, ciorcal cómhra, union meetings, craft meetups, book clubs.
Folklore does not come from books or museums, it is not dictated to us from a pulpit. It is not something to be visited rarely.
It's created collectively, it's something you do regularly, it's part of your regular routine.
It's not something you pursue on your own, it's something you find among people.
Our communities are where the life of folklore flows from, they are where new understandings, new stories and new practices flow from. Our communities are what keep folklore alive.
Séamus Ó Duillearga (founder of Ireland's National Folklore Commission) once wrote “a week in Ballinskelligs is better than a year in school” because the real way to learn folklore is to be immersed in it, to be sourrounded by the people who produce it. The real experts are the people it comes from.
The Holy Wells that our folklore springs from are the palces where people come to gather again and again and again, to talk and share stories and music. Where people come again and again and again to take an active part in their community.
If you wish to learn about folklore put down the books and find a community group. An Arts Collective, a choir, a local session, a story club, join a union, anything. And go, go again and again and again. Make it part of your life.