Yet here it is, built into the north face of the south wall during repair works carried out in 1989, a quietly eccentric piece of recycling that sits alongside a shrine statue, a cross slab, and an open U-shaped well lined with brick and edged with brick paving. The well sits on the eastern side of a stream in a wooded stretch, and a single-arched footbridge to the south crosses the water. The whole site lies along what was historically a mass-path, one of the informal routes worn into the landscape by Catholic communities travelling to worship during and after the Penal era, connecting a road to the east with Mitchelstown to the west.

The well is dedicated to Saint Fanahan, whose feast day falls on the 25th of November, and the site is the focus of a devotional pattern that extends well beyond that single day. For nine days before and nine days after the feast, large numbers of people come to pray and to perform the rounds, a ritual circumambulation of a sacred site that is a common feature of Irish holy well practice. The statue of St Fanahan housed in the shrine behind the well was replaced during the 1989 renovations. Interestingly, local tradition holds that this well effectively superseded an older one dedicated to St Finnchu, located roughly 880 metres to the south-west in Brigown, which fell out of use in its favour. The two saints are closely related in the hagiographic tradition of north Cork, and the shift in devotion from one well to another reflects how living folk religion adapts over time, consolidating around accessible and well-maintained sites rather than preserving every ancient location equally.