The well itself is subcircular, fed by springs from higher ground to the west and north-west, and was apparently almost dry when inspected in August 1999. What lifts it beyond an ordinary field feature is a finely carved upright cross, cemented onto a natural limestone block built into the north-east side of the enclosing wall, its face turned southward. The cross may once have served as a termon marker, a boundary stone indicating the sacred precinct of a church, standing at the entrance to a graveyard and medieval church dedicated to Saint Columbcille located roughly 380 metres to the south-south-east.

The site has appeared on maps since at least the first edition Ordnance Survey of 1842, labelled plainly as a holy well, and was still marked on the Cassini edition of 1920. It is likely the well once known as Tober Colmcille, a name that ties it directly to the early medieval saint. By 1999, a local informant could still recall the traditional pattern of pilgrimage: visitors would walk around a blessed tree near the well before crossing to the water itself, and there had formerly been a cairn on the site. A resident who grew up in the area during the 1960s and 1970s remembered the well not only as a place of devotion but as a practical source of drinking water and a watering point for cattle. The sacred and the agricultural occupied the same ground without apparent contradiction. Clustered to the south, within roughly 50 metres, are three fulachtaí fia, which are ancient cooking sites typically consisting of a burnt mound beside a trough, suggesting that this corner of the Burren has drawn human activity across several different periods entirely. Small numbers of pilgrims are reported to still visit.