The ash had been a site of local veneration for generations, yet by the middle of the twentieth century the old devotional practices had already begun to fade. Then, in September 1961, Hurricane Debbie delivered the decisive blow, killing the tree outright and leaving only its hollow trunk behind.

The scholar Etienne Rynne, writing in 1975, documented what remained. Inside the dead trunk, a young ash had taken root, growing up through the hollow of its predecessor. Around this new growth, someone had arranged a ring of stones, and within that ring sits a double cavity bullaun. A bullaun is a stone, or in some cases a bedrock surface, bearing one or more rounded cup-shaped depressions, worn or carved into the rock; such stones are commonly found at early ecclesiastical sites across Ireland and are frequently associated with healing or ritual use. Here, the bullaun is partially obscured by the fallen bulk of the dead trunk, as though the tree collapsed inward over the very object it had once helped to sanctify. The veneration of the ash at Lurgan appears to have continued up to around 1950, making it a relatively recent example of a tradition with very deep roots in Irish sacred landscape, where particular trees, especially ash, were regarded as focal points for prayer, offerings, and communal memory.