Somewhere in the flat pastureland of Downings, County Kildare, lies a holy well with a peculiar reputation: drinking its water was said to remove entirely the desire for intoxicating liquor. No shrine marks the spot, no signpost points the way, and there is no visible surface trace remaining of what was once a place of pilgrimage and reputed healing. The well dedicated to Saint Farnan is, for all practical purposes, invisible in the landscape.

Holy wells were focal points of Irish popular devotion for centuries, typically associated with a local saint whose feast day drew people to perform stations, a series of prayers and ritual circuits around the site, often barefoot. At Saint Farnan's Well, stations were formerly performed on the 12th of June, though some accounts place the pattern day in July instead. Farnan, or Farannan as some older sources render the name, is considered the patron saint of the area, and the well sits on level ground approximately a hundred metres south of a broad stretch of bog. It lies within the wider sacred geography associated with the traditional site of Saint Farnan's monastery, which stands roughly four hundred and fifty metres to the east-northeast. Beyond the cure for a taste for drink, other, unspecified cures were also said to have been obtained at the well, placing it within a long tradition of healing waters attributed to saintly intercession.