When Dr Charles Browne of Trinity College saw it about 1895 it had been reduced, from exposure and damp, to a shapeless lump of decayed wood - the hands, which had been in the thanksgiving position. O'Donovan saw a striking resemblance between it and the statue of St. Molaise on Inishmurray - the latter being better preserved because it was placed in a roofed chapel. The islanders believed that anyone lifting this statue three times in the name of St. Brendan, received the power to relieve a woman in labour by touching her with his hands. Kate Gaughan of Cross, who lived on Inishglora from 1932 to 1936, says the statue was not there at that time and she had never heard of it. The only object of devotion when she was there was the finger-bone of a Saint, which lay in a walled grave and which was always touched by pilgrims doing stations there.
Tradition says that it was a nunnery.
There are traces of a casual, or dry-stone wall, surrounding these. It has always been the custom that all visitors to these should break bread with one another. However, Dean Lyons took some ladies there, who partook of the water and found it wormless and quite refreshing. This one was probably no exception. I have heard it whispered that the well was a trysting place.