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The well before workers removed the stone arch . Photo Historical Tralee And Surrounding Area Facebook page.
KERRY County Council has replied to accusations that they destroyed part of a protected structure yesterday.
At Tralee Municipal District meeting this morning, Sinn Fein councillors asked why the stone arch on a protected structure was removed at Sunday’s Well on Monday, but the Council said the stonework was not part of the original well.
A number of images were posted yesterday by the Historical Tralee And Surrounding Area Facebook page of before and after photos of a well – which is estimated to be over 1,000 years old – at the Lisloose estate.
The administrator of the page, Neilus O’Shea, who lives in the estate, stopped workers from carrying out further work after he saw that they removed the stone arch stonework at the top of the well.
Speaking at the Tralee Municipal District meeting this morning, Cllr Pa Daly said he attended the area this morning and was dismayed at what had happened.
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How the well looks now. Photo by Gavin O’Connor
Cllr Toireasa Ferris said it was “beyond disgraceful” that this was carried out. “I am stunned that a local authority would go in and destroy a listed structure,” she said.
Replying, Frank Hartnett of Kerry County Council said there was an issue with public safety at the well, as a child had fallen into it and it was also being used to dump rubbish. The Council had intended to put in a grid to stop anyone falling into the well and to limit litter or items being thrown into the well.
He said the pictures posted on social media were not of the original arch. He said that the County Archaeologist told him that the arch was constructed using cement around the time of the building of the Sunday’s Well estate. Mr Hartnett said there will now be another arch constructed using lime mortar to replace it.
However, Neilus O’Shea disputes this. Speaking to TraleeToday.ie this afternoon, he is adamant that the arch had not changed in the past 1oo years.
“I’ve been going there since I was a child with my father and his father had brought him there when he was a child. My grandfather also went there as a boy. The well was the same 100 years ago as it is was up to yesterday,” he said.
Neilus, who has an avid interest in archaeology and history, argues that the limestone mortar and construction technique used on the arch was ancient and similar to that used to construct Gallarus in west Kerry.
Well done Nelius thought Frank would have gone to well himself when he was a Kid only lived down the road from their.
That stone arch which is in dispute at Sunday’s Well is Not the arch which was over the blessed well in in 1943. All families in the Killeen area at that time took their daily
supply of drinking water from the blessed well as there was not a town supply to Killeen.