Yet this modest depression at Templemoyle in County Galway is a holy well, the kind of site that once formed the devotional centre of early Irish Christian communities. Holy wells were typically associated with a local saint or patron, visited for healing or blessing, and maintained by the surrounding community, often for centuries. Here, the name Toberacollumbaun preserves that older layer of meaning, "tobar" being the Irish word for well.

The well sits some 80 metres south-south-west of a church site, placing it within the southern sector of what survives as an early ecclesiastical enclosure. Such enclosures, defined by a boundary bank or wall, marked out the sacred precinct of an early medieval monastic or parish foundation. The pairing of well and enclosure suggests a settlement of some age and organisation, where the water source held a defined and protected role within the religious landscape. O'Flanagan, writing in 1927, recorded the site in his survey of the area, noting the circular hollow and its collapsed stone surround, which implies that the well was once more formally enclosed, its drystone wall maintaining the boundary between the ordinary ground and the water within.