This kind of structure is known as a leacht, a term for a small commemorative or devotional monument, often associated with pilgrimage stations where prayers would be offered or rounds walked. The four pebbles sitting on top suggest continued ritual use, as does the small niche cut into the well's wall, which holds modern offerings left by visitors.

The well is correctly called Tobar Fechín, taking its name from Saint Fechín, a seventh-century monastic founder associated with several sites across the west of Ireland, most notably Fore in County Westmeath and Omey Island not far from here in Galway. References in both Hardiman's work of 1846 and O'Flanagan's survey recorded in 1927 confirm that the site had been noted by antiquarians across the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, suggesting it carried local significance well before any formal archaeological record. The spring lies some thirty metres north-west of a recorded cashel, a type of dry-stone ringfort, which hints that this small cluster of features may form part of a wider early medieval landscape.