The well dedicated to Saint Michael at Gortmorris in County Galway is a case in point. What survives is an irregular hollow in the ground, roughly five metres east to west and three metres north to south, partially overgrown and dry when last recorded. A few thorn trees have taken root in it. There is no water, no carved stonework, no pattern-day paraphernalia. Just a shallow depression in the earth, slowly being reclaimed.

The hollow sits in the north-eastern quadrant of an early ecclesiastical enclosure, a class of site found widely across Ireland, where a curving boundary, often a bank or ditch, marks the original extent of an early medieval monastic or church settlement. These enclosures frequently contain a cluster of associated features, a church site, a burial ground, a well, sometimes a souterrain or underground stone-lined passage. The well's dedication to Saint Michael, the archangel associated in Irish tradition with high places, liminal spaces, and protection, suggests it was once a focus of local veneration, though no specific founding date or patronal legend is attached to it in the available record. The enclosure itself is catalogued separately, pointing to a site with more layers than the hollow alone reveals.