Spaces of encounters and experience: embodiment
and emplacement at Irish holy wells
This paper considers encounters and
experiences with and at holy wells in Ireland. The holy well is a distinct
feature of the Irish landscape, with over 3,000 found across the island. While
some have been abandoned or lost, many still serve as sites of individual and
communal religious/spiritual activity and devotion. In these spaces, rituals,
which combine Christian beliefs and folkloric customs, are performed in honour
of a local patron saint to seek favours and blessings, and healings and
guidance. My research attempts to engage with the happenings and encounters
surrounding and within the embodied practices, beliefs, materiality and spiritual
or ‘saintly’ presences at these sites. The people and spaces involved
intertwine and emerge in a process of practice, faith and ethereality. I seek
to gain insight into and appreciation of the ways in which the immaterial and
discarnate becomes embodied and emplaced in this process. However, the
challenges of accessing the experiential, the affective and the spiritual
disrupt and redirect this research. Speculation on theoretical and
methodological approaches intends to contribute to discussions in these
spheres.