Holy wells are a persistent presence across Ireland, typically springs or pools associated with a saint or blessed by a religious figure, and often serving as focal points for pattern days, prayer rounds, and the leaving of offerings. This one is modest even by those standards, its cross companion serving as the main visible indicator that the spot carries religious significance.

What little survives in the record ties the well to a blessing performed by a Fr. Rowan, though no date for this event is given. The well appears in the Schools Manuscript Collection gathered by the Irish Folklore Commission in the 1930s, a nationwide project in which schoolchildren recorded local traditions, placenames, and folk knowledge from older members of their communities. That the Ballyknockan well made it into those pages at all suggests it was still known and spoken about within living memory at the time of collection, even if it had already begun to fade from active use. The small stone cross standing beside it remains a tangible link to whatever devotional life once centred on the spot.