A cross, inscribed into a nearby stone by pilgrims, speaks to the devotional life that has gathered around this modest structure. It is not a grand site in any architectural sense, but its local name carries considerable weight: "tobairín Aifrinn", meaning roughly "the little Mass well", points to a time when Catholic worship was forced underground.

During the Penal Laws, roughly from the late seventeenth century through the eighteenth, Catholic priests were prohibited from celebrating Mass openly, and congregations gathered in secret at outdoor locations, including beside wells like this one. The name suggests that Rooves Beg was one such gathering point, a place where the landscape itself became a kind of church. Writing in 1939, Hartnett recorded a local tradition attached to the well that reaches further back still into the folk memory of the place: a woman who dreamt she would be cured of her ailment if she paid rounds at the well did precisely that, and according to the tradition was restored to health. The cure, however, was not straightforward. Three visits were required, following a specific sequence of two successive Sundays and the Friday that fell between them. Paying rounds at a holy well typically involves walking a set circuit around the site, often a prescribed number of times, sometimes in silence or while reciting prayers, and the pattern here suggests that this well once had a structured devotional practice associated with it.

The well sits in open pasture and is accessible from the roadside, making it relatively easy to find. The wooden shelves beneath the arch still hold offerings, and the inscribed cross on the nearby stone remains visible, a small trace of the many hands that have passed through this place across a very long period of time.