There is only a muddy patch in the ground, and the OS maps of 1842, 1904, and 1939 all mark the spot with the same careful qualifier: "site of". The well, according to local tradition, is not lost. It left.

The story, recorded by Hartnett in 1939, holds that the holy well dedicated to St Lachtaín relocated itself to the nearby townland of Garryadeen after a young woman washed her garments, or possibly her feet, in its waters. This act was considered offensive to the saint, and the well, responding with something close to moral indignation, simply moved. St Lachtaín, also known as Lachteen, was an early Irish monastic figure associated with the Munster region, and wells carrying his name were treated as sacred spaces governed by strict, if unwritten, codes of conduct. The idea that a holy well could withdraw its presence when those codes were violated is not unique to this site; several Irish holy wells carry traditions of miraculous relocation or disappearance following some act of disrespect. What is unusual here is how thoroughly the landscape has absorbed the story. The well at Garryadeen is still recorded as a functioning site. The one at Knockyrourke exists now only as an absence, a damp depression that the maps have been faithfully annotating for nearly two centuries.