Copper coins sit in a shallow depression on top of the altar, left by people who know what this place once was and apparently feel it still warrants some acknowledgement. The site is a mass rock, a category of outdoor altar used by Catholic priests during the Penal Law era in Ireland, when the public practice of Catholicism was suppressed and the celebration of Mass was effectively outlawed. Congregations gathered in remote spots, often with a lookout posted, to hear Mass said over a large natural stone or a purpose-arranged slab. This one in County Tipperary fits that pattern precisely.

The altar itself is carefully composed. A large conglomerate boulder, three metres long and nearly two metres high, forms the backdrop to the west of which a rectangular arrangement of rough stonework has been built up to support a flat altar slab measuring roughly 1.6 metres by 1.2 metres. The whole ensemble sits within a small enclosure defined by two courses of drystone walling, a detail that suggests the site was maintained and perhaps even formalised at some point rather than simply improvised in a moment of necessity. The small stone with a central hollow resting on top of the altar may have functioned as a stoup, the basin used to hold holy water, a standard feature of Catholic liturgical practice that someone here took care to provide even in these stripped-back circumstances. The local name for the site has persisted, which itself indicates an unbroken thread of memory in the area.

The clearing sits on a slope with open views north towards the Galtee Mountains and east and west along the Glen of Aherlow, a long glacial valley running between Tipperary and Limerick. That orientation was almost certainly deliberate. A congregation kneeling on a hillside with long sightlines in multiple directions was a congregation that could not easily be surprised.