Holy wells across Ireland were typically ancient features absorbed gradually into Christian practice, but this one carries a more precise and peculiar origin story: it was, as the seventeenth-century historian Roderic O'Flaherty recorded, discovered by revelation around the year 1654.

O'Flaherty's account was preserved and cited by James Hardiman in his 1846 edition of O'Flaherty's work on Connacht, lending the claim a documented, if still mysterious, pedigree. The well itself is a natural spring enclosed within a drystone structure measuring roughly 3.2 metres by 2 metres, with an opening facing north-northeast. A modern alcove was added at some point to the north-northwest side, suggesting the site remained in some form of active use into more recent times. Drystone walling is exactly what it sounds like, stonework built without mortar, relying entirely on the careful placement of the stones for its stability. Here, that stability has long since given way; the structure is now dilapidated and overgrown, the spring itself dry when last recorded.

The well sits on the outskirts of Oughterard in County Galway, in the townland of Clare. Finding it requires heading to the western margins of the town and looking toward the northern bank of the Owenriff. The overgrowth that has claimed the site means the enclosure is easier to miss than to spot, and the dry spring offers none of the atmosphere that water might otherwise provide. What remains is essentially a low ruined wall and the outline of an idea, a place someone once considered significant enough to enclose and name.