Moss and grass have crept across its uneven surface, softening any sense of ceremony. Yet local tradition holds that this was once a mass-rock, one of the makeshift altars used by Catholic priests to celebrate Mass in secret during the Penal Law era, when the public practice of Catholicism was suppressed under legislation introduced in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Priests who were caught faced severe penalties, and congregations gathered outdoors in remote or elevated spots, using whatever flat surface the landscape offered.

What makes this particular site quietly layered is its setting. The outcrop lies within the south-western quadrant of a ringfort, the circular earthwork enclosures, typically dating from the early medieval period, that are scattered throughout the Irish countryside and were once used as farmsteads or places of local assembly. The choice of such a location for clandestine worship was not unusual. Ringforts were often considered liminal or slightly uncanny places, sometimes avoided in everyday agricultural use, which may have made them practical as well as symbolically resonant spots for gatherings that needed to go unnoticed. The natural limestone outcrop measures 3.8 metres along its north-west to south-east axis and 1.8 metres across, dimensions that would have provided a workable surface for a priest to lay out the vessels required for the Mass.