ST FANAHAN’S WELL STILE PROVES A DIFFICULT OBSTACLE
The subject of accessibility to St Fanahan’s Well was brought to the fore last Thursday on the day of the Feast of St Fanahan, as local man Jim Burke took the opportunity to visit the site, along with many others, on the saint’s day.
However, Mr Burke, since having a stroke 12 years ago, has been unable to access the site on his own, due to mobility issues. He requires the use of a wheelchair to make the half-mile journey from the entrance stile to the well, and the assistance of Headway staff and friends Jacqui McGann and Kevin Conran, to get over the stile itself.
Jim enjoys an amount of independence on his mobility scooter, but the steps prevent him from visiting the well as often as he would like to. He is able to walk in a limited manner, but to get over the steps without assistance is not possible.
“I would come here every day if I could. But I can’t get over those steps,” he says.
Pointing from the stile to a point across the road, he says, laughing, “If I tried to walk from here to there, it would take a week!”
Jacqui McGann, an employee of Headway who has been assisting Jim to regain mobility skills, and comes to Mitchelstown to assist him over the steps annually on November 25th, says that the accessibility to the well is an extremely important issue, not only to Jim but to other people in the wider community, who cannot visit the historic site because of the hindered access.
PURPOSE
It is believed that funding to make the stile accessible was sought from Cork County Council, and a grant previously approved. The Avondhu have contacted Cork County Council to establish what the details of the grant were.
A spokesperson for the St Fanahan’s Well committee said that accessbility to the well was an issue of importance and that ‘maintenance and access to the Well are always on the agenda’. The Well committee have unfortunately been unable to meet owing to Covid restrictions, and so progress on the subject has been stalled. Historically, the Well Committee has been primarily concerned with the maintenance of St Fanahan’s Well, and issues of access could be considered a relatively new topic of discussion.
For any works to proceed, even if funding was in place, planning permission would be required as the stile is a site of archaeological heritage. The properties directly to the right and left of the stile are in private ownership, and it is believed that a ramp, even a temporary one, would also require planning permission, as it still would mean a change to the structure.
The stile on Mulberry Road consists today of two steps rising up from the footpath, with a third ‘step’ formed of a six-inch high ‘wall’ of stones placed perpendicular to the top step. Historian Bill Power was one of the founding members of the St Fanahan’s Well Committee in the 1980s, and explained the purpose of a stile like the one on Mulberry Road.
“It marks the threshold of a sacred space, and it was almost part of the pilgrimage to get over the wall at one time. Also, of course, it would stop animals wandering down the lane, as they would have been free-roaming on Mulberry Road.”
Mr Power explains that the stile was originally higher, with the top stone ‘wall’ reaching almost twice its current height, as evidenced by marks in the two piers. The local historian was involved with the refurbishment of the stile over 30 years ago, and there was, for a time, a third step at the bottom of the stile.
“The third step at the bottom, which is now level with the road and ‘buried’, is actually two of the windowsills from the old workhouse.”
According to the noticeboard at the site of the stile, “As late as the 20th century, the Well was popularly associated with cures for lameness and blindness. People who believed that they had been cured through Fanahan’s intervention, hung crutches and walking sticks from trees nearest the Well.”
What intervention is needed to assist those with mobility issues remains to be seen, perhaps a miracle of another kind!