J.O'Donovan
O.S. Letters, Co. Kerry, 1841
page 60 & 61

Situation
This parish is situated in the East of the Barony of Corcaguiny, and is
bounded on the North by the ocean, on the East by the Parishes of Annagh
and Kilgarrylander, on the South by Ballinhover and on the West by the ocean.

Name:
Is in Irish Cill Ghobain, which signifies the church of Saint Gobban.
The site of the original church of St Gobban is now occupied by a modern
Protestant church and there is now a remain of antiquity in the churchyard
worth notice.

In the NorthWest corner of the townland of Killelton in this parish is the
ruin of a small church from which the townland took its name. It measures
only twenty feet in length and twelve feet in breadth, and its walls are
destroyed except four feet of their height.

In the West of this Parish is situated the celebrated Valley of Glennagalt,
the Valley of the Lunatics, to which it is believed all the madmen desire
to go as soon as they feel touched. Of this valley Dr Smith writes the following
account from which it clearly appears that he never saw the place:-
"I shall close my accounts of this Barony of Corcaguiny with just mentioning
a ridiculous notion that prevails among the country people, concerning a
place they call Glanagalt towards the Eastern part of this barony, where,
they say that all the mad folks of the kingdom, if left to their liberty,
would run. Indeed from the tremendous appearance of these desolate glens
and mountains at first sight one might imagine that none but madmen would
enter them: but why this place, rather than any other, should be frequented
by lunatics, no body can pretend to ascertain any rational cause; yet no
noe truth is more firmly credited by the common people than this impertinent
fable."

Hist. of Kerry
p.196
The following account of this glen is taken from a MS in the Library of
the R.I.A. (O'Gorman Collection):-

"Glannagalt and Glennaugh to which distracted and mad people have generally
their recourse, where some are discovered and mett with generally naked,
some deaf, some dumb, very hairy with dismall and ruefull looks, one of
which mett with at said Glenna not above seven years ago."

This glen contains three townlands, viz., Doonore North, Doonore South and
Glennagalt.
It is a beautiful deep round glen having a stream flowing thro' the middle
of it, and it is said that it was originally covered with wood and called
Gleann Coille (see Irish Romantic Tale entitled Battle Ventry). It is still
believed by all the natives that all madmen feel a yearning to make to this
valley, and that their gloomy disease is relieved by drinking of the clear
waters and eating of the water cresses, of Tobar Na nGealt, the Well of
the Lunatics, which is situated in the Valley of the Northwest corner of
the townland of Doonore South. They give many instances of mad persons who
sojourned in this valley and returned home sane and in excellent health,
as of a Mary Maher who came into it rabidly mad and entirely naked in the
year 1823 and who returned home (after having spent some months there) sound
in mind and stout in health, and on one Sullivan who came into it in the
year 1839 and returned cured of his lunacy in three days.
It is stated in the Romantic Tale entitled Cath Fionntraighe, that a party
who were panic stricken in the Battle of Ventry fled Eastward to this valley,
being naturally attracted thither by the connection which exists between
the properties of this valley and the minds of all distracted people. for
this valley attracts lunatics to it by a power similar to that which load
stone attracts steel, the North the magnet, or the earth all bodies towards
its centre!

Sit sua fides antiquae traditioni
Necnon et hodiemae credulitati
Should madness come with horrid phantasms fraught,
To taint the source of thought,
Of dire illusions sense invade,
Or notions vain the mind o'ershade,
To Gleann na nGealt flee from the Moon,
and drown they phantasms in its stream.