What makes it quietly arresting is the combination of objects resting on its surface: three small water-rolled stones, known in Irish tradition as cursing stones, smooth from handling and placed there with deliberate intent. A fourth, larger stone sits at the base. Cursing stones occupy an ambiguous place in Irish folk religion, associated with rituals of imprecation carried out at sacred sites, and their presence here, on a consecrated altar rather than at a distance from one, speaks to the layered and sometimes contradictory ways that devotional practice took root in particular landscapes.

The altar itself was constructed in 1731, as recorded on a limestone slab set between the walls at the northern end: "This altar was built by Anthony Roch, merchant from Ennis 1731 + IHS." The original structure consists of two double-faced drystone walls, placed 0.75 metres apart and aligned northwest to southeast, with a cement slab laid across them to support a grotto. It stands roughly five metres south of St John's holy well, and approximately 125 metres northeast of Killone Augustinian nunnery, a medieval foundation that lends the whole shoreline a particular density of religious association. A newer altar table has been added immediately to the east, dedicated in 2010 to the memory of Francis O'Neill of Ballyveskil, who died in 2009, suggesting that the site continues to attract local investment and personal attachment.

Mass is still celebrated here on the 23rd of June, the eve of the feast of St John the Baptist, a date that has drawn people to this grove for generations. The proximity of the holy well, the altar, and the old nunnery on the same stretch of lakeshore makes the site a concentrated example of how sacred geography accumulates over time, each layer added without entirely displacing what came before.