Holy wells are among the most persistent features of the Irish countryside, places where pre-Christian veneration of water sources was absorbed, gradually and incompletely, into Christian practice. They were visited on pattern days, particular feast days associated with a local saint, and were credited with curative properties, most often for ailments of the eyes or skin. The well at Clenagh belongs to this long tradition, though the specifics of its dedications, its pattern day, and the rituals once observed there remain undocumented in any publicly available source.

Clare is a county unusually dense with such sites. The landscape west of the Shannon has retained a remarkable number of early medieval and folk religious features, and holy wells in particular were tenacious survivors of the various reformations, suppressions, and modernisations that reshaped Irish religious life across the centuries. A well might fall out of active use, become overgrown, or lose its association with a named saint, and yet remain recognisable in the ground, often marked by a hawthorn tree, a scattering of votive offerings, or a simple stone surround. Without more detailed local documentation, it is not possible to say what form the Clenagh well takes, or whether any of these markers survive.