First documented by the folklorist Ó Muirgheasa in 1936, this ritual site sits somewhere on the steep grassy slopes that tumble down towards the sea near Stroove. Despite its evocative name and the detailed historical records, modern archaeological surveys have been unable to pinpoint the well’s exact location, leaving it as something of a mystery amongst the windswept landscape.

The well’s intriguing name hints at the complex relationship between mental illness and sacred sites in Irish folk tradition, where holy wells were often sought out for their healing properties, both physical and psychological. Ó Muirgheasa’s documentation places it firmly within the rich tapestry of Donegal’s ritual landscape, a county particularly abundant in holy wells, each with their own stories of cures, customs, and supernatural associations. The inability to locate the well today raises questions about whether it has been lost to coastal erosion, overgrown by the passage of time, or perhaps was always more of a seasonal spring than a permanent feature.

This elusive site was later included in the comprehensive Archaeological Survey of County Donegal, compiled by Brian Lacey and his team in 1983, which catalogued field antiquities from the Mesolithic period through to the 17th century. The survey’s acknowledgement of the well, despite its physical absence, underscores the importance of oral history and folk memory in understanding Ireland’s sacred geography; sites that exist as powerfully in local consciousness as they do, or did, in the physical landscape.