An Chraobh Airgid
The broad green hill of Carbury rises from the Kildare plain, two palisaded ring-forts on its slope and a round spring ringed with mossy stones feeding the young Boyne.

Laigin · Leinster

Síd Nechtain

Carbury Hill and Trinity Well · Co. Kildare

Nechtan’s hill, where the Boyne rises from the well that rose against Boann.

Open it on the full site There it is marked on the map of the five fifths, where the road of a tale can be traced.

The Dindshenchas calls the hill the síd of Nechtan son of Labraid, and his grave, and puts his secret well in its green: the well that rose against Boann and followed her to the sea. P. W. Joyce (1906) placed Síd Nechtain at the hill of Carbury, with two old ring-forts on its slope, and the well at Trinity Well near its foot, the source of the Boyne. Christian missionaries, he wrote, dedicated the well to the Holy Trinity.

In the tales

  • Boann and the Secret Well Whoever looks into Nechtan’s secret well, his eyes burst. Boann walks three times round it to show it has no power over her, and the water rises.

See also

  • Boann The woman who became the river Boyne.
  • Nechtan Lord of the síd where the Boyne rises, and keeper of the secret well.

Sources

Each tale above lists the sources it is retold from. Every source the site draws on is listed on the full site.