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flooded ground at high water came also within the distance of a mile 
from the same position, it is clear that we should look for the site 
of the northern well of St. Patrick at or near the village latterly called 
Oxmantown, which was in the sixteenth century included within the 
limits of the city of Dublin. 
Though Oxmantown and the country near it, in modern times, was 
inhabited by Fingallians, so called, it did not follow that, antecedently 
to their settlement in that locality, an Irish colony, village, or town, did 
not occupy the same place, for it was the only position adapted for a 
village, as it_was here the only stream of-fresh water, the Brathogue, 
running into the Liffey from the north, existed. There was no choice 
left then for the site of Ath-cliath of the legend in the twelfth century, 
which must have been the same as that of Oxmantown in the sixteenth, 
as indicated by Speed’s map of 1610, and Rocque’s map of 1756. In the 
former map the track of the stream which passed near Oxmantown is 
given, and agrees perfectly with the statement in the legend as to its 
water at Ath-cliath being spoiled by the tide, which would still be true, 
if the tide were not kept out, and if the land on the south side of North 
King-street had not been raised above high water-mark. 
In 1860 the water of the Brathogue, which formerly went to North 
King-street, runs into the main sewer in Upper Dominick-street, and 
finds its way down Lower Dominick-street, and not long since was used 
to supply a sort of canal or ornamental water in the centre of the old 
Mall in Sackyille-street, but is now lost in the sewerage of Great Bri- 
tain-street. : 
Returning to the topography of Ath-cliath in the legend, its dis- 
tance from a certain point on the Finglas road, its position at or near 
the only stream on the north side of the Liffey, the low level of the bot- 
tom of that stream, at the site of the village, compared with the levels 
of the tides in Dublin Harbour, and the fact that at or near the locality 
thus indicated, we find a wonderful supply of pure spring water, prove, 
as far as can be desired, not only the locality of the Ath-cliath of the 
legend, but also indicate the immediate propinquity of the site of the 
ancient well attributed in the legend to the agency of St. Patrick. 
The legend attributes this well to the Saint, though it does not name 
it after him. It is not distinctly stated that this well was the original 
well of St. Patrick, but it looks as if the legend contained words which 
distinctly claimed it to be such, and that the modern editor of the legend 
in the sixteenth century qualified them, so that little could be deduced 
from them which would have denied the honours then paid to the 
“Southern Well of St. Patrick in Dublin,” which, in Jocelyn’s time, had 
claims put forward in its behalf as the original well of St. Patrick, 
which Jocelyn’s original text must have in his own day repudiated ; and 
the usage of the term ‘‘ southern,” as applied to the well in or near the 
present Nassau-street, shows that the editor, in the sixteenth century, 
only imperfeetly understood his business of falsifying and doctoring the 
old legend to make it fit the then actual condition of things. 
