The Bell Well at Rossacrow turned out to be none of those things. When field inspection was carried out, no evidence emerged to support either the holy well classification or a pre-1700 date for the well itself, and no surviving religious associations were found attached to the site.

The well had been classified as a holy well in both the Sites and Monuments Record of 1992 and the Record of Monuments and Places in 1997, which meant it carried a formal designation built on assumptions that later proved unfounded. Situated at the base of a west-facing slope in a wet, poorly drained upland valley, the spring is now enclosed by a modern sandstone canopy, constructed relatively recently alongside a new access road connecting the site to the main road. These are improvements that might, to a casual visitor, suggest a place of some significance or at least long use. The reality, as far as inspection could determine, is more ambiguous. The well is now classified simply as a well, with the holy well designation removed.

There is something quietly instructive about that sequence of events. Ireland has hundreds of holy wells, many of them rich in folklore and still visited on particular feast days. The Bell Well at Rossacrow appears to have accumulated a classification without the underlying history to justify it, and the modern stonework, however tidy, adds a layer of apparent antiquity that the site does not possess. The spring itself is real enough, rising in that damp valley ground, but what surrounds it is largely of recent making.