The spring at Moonhall in County Kilkenny seems to have escaped all of that. It sits in a muddy hollow on the eastern bank of a fast-flowing stream, in an area of marshland, with no evidence that anyone ever lined it with stone or otherwise formalised its margins. It is a natural spring, plain and unadorned, and it is now heavily overgrown with gorse and brambles.

The well takes its name from its proximity to a castle roughly 110 metres to the northeast, with which it is understood to be associated. The relationship between a castle and its well was a practical one, a question of water supply and, in times of siege or difficulty, survival. That this spring was the source relied upon, and yet was apparently never dressed or enclosed, gives it a quietly ambiguous character. It is not clear whether the lack of stone-lining reflects a well that was always used in its raw state, or simply one whose formal elements have long since disappeared into the surrounding marsh and vegetation.