Toberlownagh translates from the Irish as 'well of new milk', drawing on the word leamhnacht, and that description alone raises questions worth sitting with. Is it a memory of something miraculous, or simply a matter of minerals?

The name Tibberlanaghte appears in records as far back as 1570, which rules out the most obvious explanation: that the 'milk' reference arose from the Great Famine of the 1840s. Across Ireland, a number of holy wells and springs accumulated folklore during that period, with stories that they ran with milk rather than water during the worst of the hunger. It is a potent tradition, rooted in desperation and the hope of the impossible. But Toberlownagh predates the Famine by nearly three centuries, so if that tradition attached itself here, it was grafted onto something older. The more grounded alternative is geological. The spring may contain elevated levels of calcium or chalk, which can give water a pale, milky opacity. In that reading, the name is almost scientific, an early observation of water chemistry rendered in Irish placename form. The spring is unenclosed, meaning it has no formal stone surround or built structure, just water finding its way out of rock on an exposed hillside.