A narrow entrance, barely wide enough for one person, opens to the east, and rough steps lead down to the water's edge. Sitting on top of the wall above a small triangular basin is a timber grotto filled with statues of Our Lady, tea-light candles, rosary beads, a jar of coins, a Child of Prague, a photograph of Lourdes, and a crucifix. The accumulation of objects is unhurried and unself-conscious, the kind of layered devotion that accrues over generations rather than being arranged for effect.

The well's Irish name, Tobar-Mhic Seaain, translates as the Well of the Son of John, and it was already well established as a site of religious practice when a local account recorded in 1839 noted that stations, the traditional circuits of prayer performed at a fixed sequence of points around a sacred site, were still being carried out there. That phrasing, "still continue to be performed," suggests the practice was old enough by then that its persistence was worth remarking on. The well appears under the anglicised name Tobermacshane on all Ordnance Survey historic mapping of the area, which points to a continuous local recognition of the site across the nineteenth century and beyond. The water is reputed to offer a cure for ailments of the eyes, a claim associated with many Irish holy wells, where the quality or character of the spring water was understood to carry particular healing properties.

The well is reached from a rough pasture field via a small gate, with laurel trees overhead and coniferous forestry to the north-east giving it a secluded, slightly dim atmosphere even in daylight. The feast day associated with rounds at the well is the 15th of August, the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, when the site would traditionally draw those observing the old pattern, the local gathering of prayer and ritual that once marked the calendar of such places across Ireland.