The saint in question, Laichtín (the name is also spelled Laictín), is said to have lived in the sixth century and is associated with a Franciscan monastery at Lislaughtin, the ruins of which were already ivy-covered by the time local schoolchildren were writing about them in the late 1930s. He appears to have been a figure of considerable local devotion: people reportedly came from across Ireland seeking cures, which according to the tradition were channelled through a miraculous power residing in one of his small fingers. That relic, preserved after his death, was eventually lost around the fourteenth century. The well itself sat on land belonging to a Mrs Sullivan, and Caoimhín Ó Danachair, recording in 1958, noted it was still being used for domestic supply and for cattle, though it was recognised locally as a former holy well. The ritual practice known as "doing the rounds", in which a pilgrim walks a prescribed circuit around a sacred site while praying, was not observed here, partly because local tradition was uncertain whether the saint had ever actually visited the well. One account gives a precise date for such a visit: 13 May 758, a specificity that sits oddly against the general uncertainty. The bull legend appears in both sets of schoolchildren's accounts: the animal had killed a number of people and was blocking access to the well, until the saint passed by and the bull walked forward and knelt before him, after which it harmed no one. The townland name Lislaughtin itself preserves a version of the saint's name, and there is said to be a second well dedicated to him at Asdee, a few miles to the north.

The well as a physical structure is gone. What remains is the story, collected at a moment when that too was on the verge of disappearing.