Historic Navan well runs dry

A MUCH-USED spring well which supplied drinking water to many Navan families for generations has dried up.

A number of local people who relied on the well at the back of the library for their drinking water, have expressed concern at the fact that it has suddenly run dry and Cllr Emer Tóibín raised the issue at the recent meeting of Navan Municipal Council. Michael Wogan who lives in St Ultan's Tce in Navan said he has been going to the well for his drinking water every second day or so all his life.

“I don't like the taste of the tap water in Navan, so I have been going to the well two or three times a week for years and years.

“Four weeks ago, I filled up my bottles as usual, but when I went back two days later there was nothing – it had completely dried up.”

Michael recalls that Meath County Council made a great job of fixing up the well about ten years ago and a lot of people used it for drinking water.

“I believe it is hundreds of years old. It was a natural spring,” he said.

“There was so much water in it, it was flowing constantly but now its completely dry.

“It used to take about 40 second to fill a two-litre bottle.

“It tasted so much better than the tap water, but now it seems that is the end of it.”

Michael is now buying bottled water and has also filled up at the 'lion's mouth' in Kentstown close to where his daughter lives.

“I called the Council about it but nobody called me back,” he said.

At December’s meeting of Navan Municipal Council, Cllr Emer Tóibín asked if officials knew why the well had dried up, but was told they didn't know anything about it.

Cllr Tóibín told the Meath Chronicle that it was a natural spring believed to be hundreds of years old.

“I was contacted when it ran dry. It was well used by people in the town, although many didn't know it was there.

“I remember it throwing out water when I was a kid.”

A spokesperson for the Council said that the Council's only role regarding wells like this, would be to advise the public and any water extracted from such type of wells is untreated.