The one at Kilbride in County Mayo belongs to a townland whose very name signals its likely dedication: Kilbride derives from the Irish Cill Bhríde, meaning the church of Brigid, pointing to an early ecclesiastical site associated with one of Ireland's most widely venerated saints. Wells bearing her name, or simply inheriting her territory, were places of pattern days, rounds, and the tying of cloth strips to nearby bushes, a practice known as leaving a clootie, in the hope of healing or intercession.

St Brigid herself, whether understood as the fifth-century abbess of Kildare or as a Christianised echo of an older goddess of the same name, attracted an extraordinary number of wells and sites across Ireland. Her feast day falls on the first of February, which also marks Imbolc, the old Celtic beginning of spring. That overlap is not coincidental, and it helps explain why so many Kilbride placenames cluster around wells, springs, and water sources that predate any formal church structure. The well at this particular Kilbride would have functioned within that long tradition, drawing local communities for seasonal observance and, in time, folding those older rites into Catholic devotional practice.