That gap between cartographic presence and on-the-ground investigation gives the site an oddly provisional quality, as though it has been noted down but never quite confirmed.

The well's proper Irish name is Tobar Cáillín, which translates roughly as the well of Cáillín, the saint anglicised as Keelan. Holy wells, known in Irish as tobair, were focal points of local devotion long before and long after the formal structures of the Church took hold; many were associated with a named saint and visited for cures or patterns, the seasonal communal gatherings that combined religious observance with something closer to a festival. The dedication here to Cáillín connects the well to a saint of that name, though the precise local traditions attached to this particular site are not well documented. What is clear is that both the first and second editions of the Ordnance Survey six-inch maps, produced across the mid to late nineteenth century, recorded the well's existence alongside the nearby church, suggesting it was a recognised feature of the landscape at least since that period of systematic Irish cartographic survey. Lord Killanin and Michael V. Duignan noted it briefly in their 1967 county guide, passing the reference along without elaboration.