At Ratharney, on low-lying land beside a fast-flowing stream, one of those wells survives as a circular waterlogged depression measuring 3.55 metres in diameter, its edges defined by a ring of boulders and some outcropping rock. Holy wells in Ireland were typically venerated as sites of healing or devotion, often associated with early Christian figures, and their physical form varied widely, from elaborate stone-lined basins to simple boggy hollows like this one. The unassuming appearance here is part of what makes it worth attention.

Both wells are dedicated to St Columbkille, the sixth-century monastic founder associated most famously with Iona and Derry, whose cult spread widely across Ireland and left its mark on sacred sites far from his principal foundations. The proximity of two separately recorded wells sharing the same dedication in one small area at Ratharney is the kind of local detail that rarely makes it into general accounts of early Irish Christianity, yet it hints at a more concentrated pattern of veneration in this corner of County Longford than the landscape might immediately suggest. The second well lies roughly fifteen metres to the north-west of this one, and both occupy the same saturated, stream-side ground.