Known as the Spa Well, it is a chalybeate spring, meaning its waters are naturally impregnated with iron salts, a quality that made such springs fashionable destinations for health-seekers across eighteenth-century Europe. But whether this particular well belonged to the older tradition of holy wells, those venerated water sources that form a distinct thread in Irish devotional life, is a question historians have not quite settled.

The disagreement is modest but telling. One account, relayed by Jones in Grove White's early twentieth-century compilation, claims the well was venerated from pre-Patrician times and that druids once held a sanctuary there, placing it squarely in the category of ancient sacred sites. Against this, O'Reilly, writing in 1987, took a more cautious view, noting that the well was not locally known as a holy well, even if it drew considerable numbers of visitors. Whatever its spiritual status, the well was clearly significant enough by 1780 to merit a formal stone inscription, bearing the name Dr. John Creagh and that year. Whether Creagh was a patron, a physician who promoted the well's curative properties, or simply someone who wished to leave his mark is not recorded.