It appears on Ordnance Survey maps from as early as 1841 to 1842, and again on the 1914 revision, each time labelled "Friars' Well", a name that quietly points toward an older religious life on the island.

The well lies to the west-north-west of Carrig Abbey, and was probably connected to it, serving the monastic community that once occupied the island. Dry-walled construction, where stones are carefully stacked without mortar to hold their shape, is a technique with deep roots in Irish vernacular building, and here it lines a well steep enough that steps were necessary to reach the water. That water is still present. What is absent is everything else: no pattern day survives, no rounds, no offerings, no local legend. Holy wells in Ireland were frequently the focus of devotional practice, with communities walking a prescribed circuit, known as "rounds", and leaving tokens at the site. Here, that whole layer of living tradition has been lost, leaving only the physical structure and its cartographic name as evidence that this place once mattered to someone.