About Well Water Network

Ireland is full of wells: holy wells, village wells, spring wells in the corner of a field, wells that were covered over and forgotten. Most are known only to the people who live near them, and when those people are gone, so is the knowledge. Well Water Network is a place to write that knowledge down, together, starting in Ireland and open to wells anywhere in the world.

It was inspired by the work of Charlotte Emily Rose, who has found and restored more than a hundred forgotten wells around Kinsale, County Cork. Her book, Well-Being, tells that story.

How it works

Anyone can look at the map and every well's page. To add anything, sign in with your email address: we send a six-digit code, and there is no password. You get a screen name, which you can change; your email address is never shown.

Everything on a well's page comes from reports, each signed by the person who made it. You can change or delete your own reports, never anyone else's. A well with one report says "not confirmed yet"; as more people report it, its location gets more precise and it becomes confirmed. Counting is by person, so one person's many reports count once.

Every location has a circle showing how sure it is. When reports agree, the circle shrinks; when they disagree, it grows, and the page shows who places the well somewhere else.

Private land, and safety

Unless someone has reported that a well is on public land (and no more people say it is private), its page says it is presumed to be on private land and asks visitors not to go without the landowner's permission. Please respect that.

Wells can be deep, unstable or contaminated. This site records that wells exist and what people know about them. It says nothing about whether any water is safe to drink.

What you add belongs to everyone

Everything contributors add (names, descriptions, photos) is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence: anyone may reuse it, as long as they credit the contributor's screen name and share what they make the same way. That way the record of these wells can outlive this website. Please add only text and photos that are yours to share.

Something wrong?

Every well, report and photo has a "Report a problem" link. You do not need to sign in to use it. A person reads every one.

Free, and cheap to run

There is nothing to buy and no advertising. Maps are from OpenStreetMap and its contributors.