Holy wells are a familiar feature of the Irish countryside, typically springs or water sources venerated over centuries for their curative or spiritual properties, often associated with a local saint and visited on pattern days. This one, however, has slipped rather more thoroughly from sight than most.

Local tradition holds that the water from the well once flowed eastward into a nearby stream, a detail that suggests the well was once known well enough to be described with some precision by people in the area. But the site is recorded as heavily overgrown and, at the time of survey, impossible to locate on the ground. The landscape itself seems to have closed over it. A steep south-facing slope with a narrow channel running through it is not the easiest terrain to search, and vegetation on such slopes, particularly in the wetter parts of West Cork, can overtake a small stone-lined spring with surprising speed.

What remains is essentially a coordinate and a rumour of water, the kind of entry that speaks less to a place than to an absence. The well is recorded, which means it was once known; it cannot be found, which means something has changed, whether the channel has shifted, the surrounding scrub has thickened, or the local knowledge that once pointed the way has simply not been passed on.