The transformation is striking precisely because so many Irish holy wells retain their rough, unadorned character indefinitely. This one did not.

When the folklorist Caoimhín Ó Danachair recorded the site in 1955, he described it plainly as a small rectangular well with a poor spring set in a little grove of whitethorn trees, situated on the north-western side of a low valley with a stream running to the north-east. Since then, the well has been comprehensively modernised. The rectangular pool, measuring roughly 0.9 metres by 1.5 metres, is now covered by a stone vault with an arched opening facing east. Above that opening sits an arched recess housing a statue behind glass, the whole facade flanked by stone piers. The area in front of the pool has been paved and enclosed by a crenellated stone wall, giving the site a formal, almost miniature-ecclesiastical quality that its earlier incarnation would not have suggested. Cups and other devotional objects remain in the vicinity of the pool, pointing to continued use rather than mere preservation. The well is dedicated to Our Lady and St Ita, the sixth-century abbess associated with Killeedy in the same county, and the water was traditionally reputed to cure sore eyes and other ailments, a claim Ó Danachair noted without embellishment.

Rounds, the traditional circuits of prayer made at holy wells, are performed here on the Saturdays of May, so a visit during that month would give the best chance of seeing the site in active devotional use rather than simply as a quiet structure in a low valley. The setting remains rural and unannounced, and the stream-fed valley means the ground nearby can be soft underfoot depending on the season. The crenellated enclosure and the vaulted stonework are conspicuous enough once you are close, but the site does not announce itself from any distance.