The townland of Kilmaley in County Clare contains one such well, quietly registered as a monument and left largely to its surroundings. The name Kilmaley itself derives from the Irish "Cill Máille", suggesting an early ecclesiastical foundation, which makes the presence of a holy well entirely consistent with the pattern seen across Clare and the wider west of Ireland, where early Christian sites frequently incorporated pre-existing sacred water sources.

Holy wells were, and in many cases still are, sites of "pattern" days, a corruption of the word "patron", when local communities would gather to pray, walk a prescribed circuit known as a "round", and leave small offerings such as rags, coins, or religious medals tied to nearby branches. The association with a particular saint, or in some cases a more ambiguous local figure, gave each well its own character and ritual calendar. Clare is particularly dense with such sites, reflecting both the county's early monastic history and the persistence of folk devotion well into the modern period. Beyond that general context, the specific history of this well at Kilmaley remains to be fully documented in the public record.