Sacred Cows!¬

There were Halloween decorations on the semi-permanently locked gates of Newberry Hall, Carbury Co Kildare, when I got there. It seemed appropriate.  

Inside those gates was a world of legend and mystery that I would not see unless I came back next Trinity Sunday, which will be 31 May 2026.

Inside the demesne is the Sidh Neachtain, the Fairy Hill of Neachtain and the Well of Segais, the source of the River Boyne. It is where the river got its wisdom and from which Fionn MacCumhail was to drink.

A long, long time ago there was a well there shaded by nine magical hazel trees bearing crimson nuts. Whoever ate them would gain all the knowledge of the world. Some of the nuts fell into the well and were eaten by a fish which came to share its wisdom. It was known as the Salmon of Knowledge.

The task of guarding this well and preventing anyone drinking from it was given to the hero Neachtain.   His wife, named Boann meaning ‘White Cow’, wanted to see the famous well for herself but it was Neachtain’s duty to keep its location a secret even from her.  

One day Boann followed Neachtain quietly to the well and when he had left she drank from it. Immediately the water burst out, ran down the hill and out through the countryside all the way to the Irish Sea. The resulting river was called after her, Boann becoming Boyne.

Many years later the young warrior Fionn MacCumhail was a student of the poet and druid Finnegas. One day Finnegas went fishing in the Boyne and caught the Salmon of Knowledge. Realising what it was, he sent Fionn back to cook it but told him, ‘On no account must you eat it.’

While roasting it Fionn burnt his thumb on the salmon and instinctively put his thumb in his mouth to soothe it. When he told Finnegas about this, Finnegas remembered the prophesy of someone named Fionn whose destiny it was to eat the Salmon of Knowledge. He made Fionn sit down and eat the entire salmon.

I had come to Carbury to see the magic well and, perhaps, drink some of its wisdom. However the locals were adamant that the gates into the demesne where it is located are locked and opened only one day a year.  In Christian times the well was renamed ‘Trinity Well’ and only on Trinity Sunday are people allowed to visit and celebrate the ‘pattern’ there.  

I did not immediately give up my search for wisdom but walked down the road to find where the water from the well ‘burst’ under the wall of the demesne to escape into fields on the other side and begin its journey to the Irish Sea at Drogheda.

A roadside hedge came between us but I stuck my phone through its branches and, remarkably, not only did I get a photo of the river but there were cows drinking from it! One was even white, just like the ‘White Cow’ of Boann but probably not as wise. What more could I have hoped for!

I am beginning to believe, as the late Manhcan Magan would say, that there is more to the old stories than just fanciful tales.