To Heaven Or To Gubacreeny

Drama on Newstalk

This goes back over a hundred years for a drama set in the midst of the ‘Spanish Flu’.

During the 1918 ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic, a desperate father brings his sick daughter to find the ‘Miracle Well’ in Gubacreeny.

‘1918 Ireland: Having just lost his wife from Spanish Flu, a desperate father vows to bring his sick daughter through a politically divided Ireland to find the ‘Miracle Well’ in Gubacreeny, a place rumoured to cure the illness.’

Based on the written accounts by the Irish during the Spanish Flu, this story is a fictionalised version of a local Meath legend. In it, a father (Sean Sheridan) brought his sick daughter (Mary Sheridan) in a cart to the ‘Miracle Well’ in Gubacreeny, Co Leitrim. The cart got stuck and the horse pulling the cart was shot by a roving gang. Sean had to bring her the rest of the way on foot. This ‘Miracle Well’ in Gubacreeny was apparently blessed by the local priest and anyone that visited it was cured of the ‘Big Flu’.