It appears on Ordnance Survey maps from 1840 onwards as Toberfaughtna, but the scholar John O'Donovan also recorded it under the folk name Buallán Fachtna, and that older name, repeated by subsequent antiquarians, hints at a devotional life that predates any formal inscription. The well itself is open to the east and roofed with two large stone lintels, a simple but deliberate piece of construction that sets it apart from the many Irish holy wells that amount to little more than a wet hollow in the ground.

The well sits roughly 110 metres north of Kilfenora Cathedral, dedicated to St Fachtnan, and may mark the northern boundary of the wider ecclesiastical enclosure that surrounds it. What makes Toberfaughtna particularly striking is the inscribed cut stone documented by O'Donovan. The Latin text records that one Donaldus Mac Donogh founded the structure with the licence and permission of the Bishop of Kilfenora, and gives the date as Anno Domini 1687. The inscription names the dedication jointly to God and to the Blessed Fehnnano, an anglicised form of Fachtnan, the sixth-century saint to whom the cathedral is also attributed. There is a small discrepancy in the record: Westropp, writing in 1900, cited the Macdonough dedication as 1684, three years earlier than O'Donovan's reading. Whether that reflects a misreading of Roman numerals or a different stage in the building's construction is not resolved.

A second holy well, Toberdane, lies only about 22 metres to the south-south-east, so the two sites sit in close proximity within what was evidently a well-used sacred landscape. A modern plaque has been placed at Toberfaughtna, though it is worth knowing that the reference number on that plaque actually pertains to Toberdane rather than to the well it stands beside, a small administrative confusion that is easy to miss on a casual visit.