It is an unglamorous sight, and yet this modest hollow in the ground carries a local name, a local memory, and a local reputation that outlasted the knowledge of where it even was. The well had to be rediscovered by its own landowner, who learned its location from his father before digging it out again.

The well is known locally as Tobairín Mára, a name that points to a long tradition of holy wells in Ireland, where particular springs or pools were believed to carry curative or protective properties, often associated with a saint or with older, less easily categorised forms of devotion. This one was especially reputed for healing eye ailments, though accounts credit it with all sorts of cures. That combination of specific remedy and general healing power is characteristic of many such sites across the country, where belief accumulated over generations rather than being fixed to a single origin story. The fact that it had to be uncovered at all, its location surviving only in oral transmission from father to son, suggests how quietly these traditions can persist even as the physical sites fade from view beneath marshland and vegetation.