Three steps descend from the dividing wall to the well, and three niches are set into the inner face of the western portion of the enclosing wall. One niche is fully blocked, another partially so, and the central one still holds votive offerings, among them part of a crucifix. That detail, the lingering trace of devotional practice in a niche cut into a stone circle around a natural spring, gives the place a particular quality: neither fully active nor entirely abandoned.

The well's identity has been a matter of local dispute for as long as anyone thought to record it. When Ordnance Survey teams gathered place-name and folklore information in the nineteenth century, later published by O'Flanagan in 1927, they found that locals could not agree on what to call it. Some knew it as Toberpatrick, the well of Saint Patrick, while others called it Saint Bernard's well. A third group went further, insisting that both a Toberpatrick and a Tober Bernard existed separately in the area, which would make this well one of two rather than a site caught between competing names. Holy wells in Ireland frequently carry dedications to local or universal saints and were traditionally visited on the saint's feast day as part of a practice called a pattern, involving prayer, circumambulation, and the leaving of small offerings. Whether the dual naming here reflects a genuine confusion of two distinct sites, a merging of two traditions over time, or simply disagreement among neighbours, the question has never been settled.