Township: Ceann a’ Bharra

Map Reference: Kenavara 130

Name Type: well

Meaning: The well of St Patrick

Other Forms: Tobar Phàraig - DS, SA1968.029

Tobar Phàraig - DMcN

Related Places: Teampal Phàraig

Information:"It is a well, and the water must be coming from the rock. It is big, three feet in each dimension at its opening and it's as round as a water pipe. It is filled with stones today after a lamb drowned in it. But if you took the stones out and baled it dry, it would fill up again as full as ever. I heard a story from the time of my grandfather, whatever illness you had, if you went to Dabhach Phàraig and tasted the water there in the name of the Lord, you would be cured. " Donald Sinclair, SA1968.029.

ONB p.221: "quite close to the ruin [St Patrick's temple] on the west side stands a vat cut in the rock which is called in Gaelic by the inhabitants An Dabhaich meaning a vat."

"A cavity in a rock some 50 yards from the chapel is called the Dabhach Pharig, or Patrick's Vat. It is about 2 feet in diameter, and tradition says that when the water is baled out of this reservoir, a shower immediately and miraculously falls and fills it again." Sands J PSAS, 1881-2, 461


Local Form:

Languages : Gaelic

Informants: Donald Sinclair, West Hynish, SA1968.029

Informant 2: Donald MacNeill (Dòmhnall an Tailleir), The Land, 1/1994

Informant 3: ONB