That detail alone sets Tobar na mBan Fionn apart from the many holy wells scattered across the Irish landscape. The name translates roughly as the well of the fair women, and the association with lamenting female figures connects it to a layer of belief that runs deep in Irish folk memory, where the boundaries between Christian devotion and much older mythologies were never entirely fixed.

The well issues from the foot of a slight scarp in Carhan Woods, on the northern slopes of Bentee mountain on the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry. A series of stepping stones cross a stream on the approach, giving the place a small drama before you arrive. Rounds were formerly made here, the practice of walking a prescribed circuit around a sacred site, usually in a clockwise direction and often on a particular feast day, as a form of prayer or penitence. That this happened at Tobar na mBan Fionn suggests it once drew people with some regularity, though the tradition appears to have lapsed. The Iveragh Peninsula is one of the more archaeologically dense corners of Ireland, and wells like this one often sit quietly within landscapes that also contain promontory forts, ogham stones, and early ecclesiastical remains, though the well itself belongs to a strand of veneration that resists easy categorisation.

The well sits within Carhan Woods, and the stepping stones across the stream remain part of the approach. The first of May, the old festival of Bealtaine marking the start of summer in the Gaelic calendar, is the date tradition specifically attaches to the gathering of the goddesses, which gives the site an unusual specificity for anyone drawn to the intersection of landscape and seasonal ritual.