Foley, Ronan
(2013)
Small health pilgrimages: Place and practice at the holy well.
Culture and Religion, 14 (1).
pp. 44-62.
ISSN 1475-5610
Abstract
While established pilgrimage sites have extensive literatures, holy wells are
less well documented, yet remain significant sites of pilgrimage with healing
associations within more localised settings (Rattue 1995). Health geographers
describe such settings as therapeutic landscapes where established reputations
for healing are central to the production of place (Gesler 2003). Drawing from
a sample of holy wells in Ireland, the operation of holy wells as markers of
mind/body/spirit health is explored through a deep mapping of place. Taking
account of material, symbolic and inhabited dimensions of wells, they are
explored under three parallel themes. Retreat is identified as a core aspect of
the well visits informed by phenomenological engagements and material
spaces of the well where stillness forms the basis of a spiritual health practice
(Conradson 2007). The histories of the wells also contain surprisingly liminal
and carnivalesque recreational elements wherein the sacred mingled regularly
with the profane. Finally, well pilgrimages connect to a range of scale issues
around their position as between special-and-everyday spaces within which
heterogeneous healing practices emerge. In the sustenance and revival of holy
well visits, the notion of the small pilgrimage as a performance of health
emerges to broaden our understanding of the wider pilgrimage process.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
pilgrimage; holy wells; therapeutic landscapes; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography |
| Item ID: |
8854 |
| Identification Number: |
https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2012.756410 |
| Depositing User: |
Dr. Ronan Foley
|
| Date Deposited: |
28 Sep 2017 15:26 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Culture and Religion |
| Publisher: |
Routledge |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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