The well itself is modest to the point of near-invisibility: just 0.65 metres across and 0.72 metres high. It is the kind of thing you could walk past without registering, which makes the layers of history attached to it all the more quietly arresting.

The well lies a short distance north of the Carmelite friary in Kinsale, to which it shares a dedication, and it is thought to have once supplied water to the friars. Gillan and Hurley, writing in 1978, noted this probable functional connection, and the proximity of the two sites makes it plausible that the well served a practical as much as a devotional purpose within the friary's daily life. Older still, at least in local memory, is a suggested link to the early Christian foundation of St Multose, the patron saint associated with Kinsale's medieval parish church of the same name. That connection remains a matter of local tradition rather than documented fact, but it hints at a continuity of sacred use on this small patch of ground stretching back well before the Carmelites arrived.

The well is approached by a pathway running between houses, which gives the visit an oddly domestic quality. The rockface setting and the semi-circular stone enclosure at the rear are the details most worth pausing over once you reach it.