Not every holy well is holy in any traceable sense. Near Kilmacthomas in County Waterford, a site recorded under the name Saint John's Well turns out, on closer inspection, to be a natural spring that has been back-filled, leaving behind a rush-filled channel about five metres wide and fifteen metres long, tracing a gentle course south-east and then south-west across a sheltered fold in a south-facing slope. There are no known religious associations attached to it, and no evidence that it was ever used as a site of veneration. The name is all that remains of whatever connection, real or imagined, once linked this modest trickle of water to the cult of a saint.