That detail alone sets Tobar Phádraig apart from the hundreds of holy wells scattered across the Irish countryside. The explanation, preserved in local folklore collected from Kilmallock National School, is precise and unforgiving: a man cut timber from St. Patrick's tree, the ancient growth overhanging the well, and used it for firewood. The curse that followed rendered the water unboilable, and the cutter's family and cousins, according to the account, died without issue. A second story tells of a man who trimmed one of the trees and was struck blind on the spot; he repented and was cured at the well. The village of Patrickswell, County Limerick, takes its name directly from this site, Tobar Phádraig, where tradition holds that St. Patrick himself once celebrated Mass.

When the scholar John O'Donovan recorded the place in 1840 for the Ordnance Survey Name Books, he noted that the centre stone bore the carved letters I H S, a Christogram used widely in medieval and post-medieval devotional contexts. The folklorist Caoimhín Ó Danachair visited and photographed the site in 1954 and 1955, describing a small rectangular masonry enclosure over the main well, with a carved slab showing the I H S lettering alongside two rough angel figures. The well sits on a west-facing slope, with a stream and two open-air ponds close by; the remains of a medieval church and graveyard lie roughly thirty metres to the south-west. Immediately to the east is a low mound known as St. Patrick's Bed, a penitential station where pilgrims complete their rounds. The curative property of the water is known locally as dionacht, from the Irish for protectiveness; the phrase dionacht ar ghalair means immunity against disease.

The site is most active on and around the 17th of March, when the full pilgrimage ritual, the Rounds, is performed. A visitor following the traditional practice collects nine pebbles from the pathway, completes nine circuits of the well discarding one pebble per circuit, then moves to St. Patrick's Bed for five further circuits, before returning to take three sips of water from the covered well. On a final visit, the custom is to half-fill a bottle from the covered well and top it up with water from the two open ponds, each believed to carry its own quality. A week-long pattern, a traditional gathering combining devotion and community assembly, once took place here around St. Patrick's Day, with a formal Gathering Day and a Scattering Day marking its close. The most recent addition to the site is a statue of St. Patrick, placed on top of the covered well by the local community in 2021. Visitors at other times of year will find a quiet, layered place where small offerings, coins, flowers, and religious objects are left at the well, and the trees nearby still carry their long reputation for consequence.