It is a modest, circular structure, barely a metre across, built in the dry-stone tradition without mortar, covered on one side by a metal sheet and enclosed by a wire fence to keep livestock out. The water inside is shallow, no more than twenty centimetres deep. Nothing about it announces its former purpose, and that is precisely what makes it worth paying attention to.

The folklorist Caoimhín Ó Danachair documented the well in 1955, describing it as 'a small clear well in an open field, now used for domestic purposes, but known to have been a holy well, dedicated to the Holy Cross'. Holy wells are a widespread feature of the Irish landscape, typically springs or simple stone-lined wells associated with a patron saint or religious dedication, often the site of seasonal devotional visits called patterns. The dedication here to the Holy Cross rather than a named saint is less common, and by Ó Danachair's time even that association had largely dissolved into everyday utility. He photographed the site in 1954, and those images are now held by the National Folklore Collection at UCD, accessible through the Dúchas archive online. Within roughly 150 metres to the west lie the remains of a church and graveyard, which suggests the well once sat within a broader sacred landscape whose other elements have also quietly receded from active use.

The well is set in level pasture at Cluggin, County Limerick. Visitors should expect an agricultural setting with no formal access or interpretation; the wire fence that surrounds the well is a practical enclosure rather than a heritage boundary. The church and graveyard to the west are the most useful landmarks for orientating yourself in the field. The Ó Danachair photographs on duchas.ie offer a useful comparison with what survives today, showing how little the basic form has changed in the intervening decades even as its meaning has continued to recede.