It has a monument number, a map reference, and a place in the national inventory of Irish heritage sites, which is itself a kind of quiet distinction. Wells of this type, scattered across the Irish countryside in their hundreds, can range from prehistoric water sources to early Christian holy wells, the latter often associated with a local saint, a pattern day, and the slow accumulation of votive offerings left by generations of visitors seeking cures or making good on a promise.

Lismanny itself is a small rural townland, and wells in such settings frequently have long, layered histories that resist easy summary. A holy well, known in Irish as tobar, typically comprises a natural spring enclosed or partially enclosed by stonework, sometimes sheltered by a tree festooned with strips of cloth, coins pressed into bark, or small devotional objects. The practice of visiting such wells, particularly on a saint's feast day, is called a pattern, an anglicisation of the Irish word pátrún, meaning patron. Many Galway wells retain active traditions of this kind, though others have fallen quietly out of use, their significance surviving mainly in the townland name or in the memory of older residents.