Derived from the Irish tobar, meaning well, it is the kind of place-name that quietly signals a sacred spring somewhere nearby, even when the spring itself has become difficult to find. That is precisely the situation here: a holy well dedicated to St. Brigid is understood to have given this corner of County Cork its name, yet its exact location has been lost to time, or at least to recorded knowledge.

The earliest description comes from Seán MacCarthaigh, writing in a 1942 survey, who noted that St. Brigid's Well lay on the eastern side of the road running past Broomley towards Tracton. That is about as precise as the record gets. Holy wells dedicated to Brigid, one of Ireland's most widely venerated saints, are found across the country and were typically sites of pattern days, local gatherings held on or around the saint's feast day, often involving prayers, offerings, and circumambulation of the well. Whether such customs were observed here is not recorded, but the fact that the well was considered significant enough to name the settlement after it suggests it once held real local importance.

For anyone curious enough to look, the road between Broomley and Tracton in south Cork is the place to start, with the eastern verge being the direction MacCarthaigh pointed toward. Whether anything survives at ground level, a stone surround, a seeping hollow, or a patch of unusually damp ground, remains an open question.