It is now overgrown and inaccessible, which means most people who pass near it have no idea it is there at all. That quiet disappearance is itself part of the story, because this was once a place where people came with something specific in mind: the well was believed to cure eye complaints, a specialisation not uncommon among Irish holy wells, which were traditionally associated with particular ailments or saints and visited as part of a devotional routine.

Writing in 1939, a researcher named Hartnett recorded the spring in some detail, noting that "rounds were paid here, but not within living memory." Rounds refer to the ritual circumambulation of a sacred site, typically performed a set number of times in a prescribed direction while reciting prayers, a practice with roots older than Christianity in Ireland that was absorbed into local folk devotion. By Hartnett's time, the practice at Rearour had already lapsed, meaning the well had fallen out of active use at least a generation before the mid-twentieth century. O'Donoghue, writing in 1986, preserved the tradition about its healing properties for eye conditions. The site is not alone in its area: a second holy well lies roughly 200 metres to the north, suggesting that this part of Cork once held a small concentration of sacred water sources, each presumably with its own local following.