One was for drinking; the other was for bathing sore eyes. The distinction mattered to the people who came here, and the physical difference between the two structures reinforced it: the higher well, covered by an arched hood, was the one regarded as holy, while its lower neighbour, though connected to it by flowing water, occupied a more ambiguous position. A holy well is typically a spring or water source associated with a saint and believed to carry curative or protective properties, often visited as a site of local pilgrimage or informal devotion. Here, the ritual appears to have been quiet and personal: passers-by would stop, drink a little water, and perhaps say a prayer.

When the folklorist and writer P.W. Joyce described the wells in 1912, the higher arch still had a wooden door and a carved stone head, said to represent St. Catherine herself. By 1958, Caoimhín Ó Danachair noted that this stone head had already been stolen more than once, suggesting it was both conspicuous enough to attract attention and light enough to carry away. Folklore gathered from Palmerstown School as part of the Irish Schools' Collection, the nationwide project of the 1930s in which schoolchildren recorded local traditions from their communities, captures an earlier and more complete picture. A pupil noted that the land at the time belonged to a Mr. McMahon, who identified the right-hand well as the holy one. The two wells were described as connected, with the water of one flowing into the other, though only the holy well's water was left untouched for purposes beyond the ceremonial.

The wells are located at the side entrance to St. Catherine's Park, which is accessible from the Lucan Road near Palmerstown. The arched coverings remain in place, though the stone head is long gone and the well hood has been vandalised over the years. The site is no longer actively venerated, and there is little to signal its former significance to someone walking past without prior knowledge. The lower well is the easier of the two to overlook. Looking at the two arches together, the difference in height between them is still apparent, a small physical echo of the hierarchy that once governed how each was used.