During the Penal Laws era, when Catholic worship was suppressed in Ireland and priests risked severe punishment for saying Mass, open-air gatherings at inconspicuous locations became the practical alternative to churches. This particular outcrop is said, by local tradition, to have served precisely that purpose, functioning as a mass rock where the surrounding community came to worship in secret.

The site holds more than the rock itself. Among the ruins of a cottage to the south-west, a carved crucifixion slab was discovered, reused at some point as a window sill, the kind of pragmatic recycling that often obscures the significance of older religious objects. The slab dates to after 1700, placing it firmly within the Penal period, and it has since been removed for safekeeping to nearby Coolvuck House. The cottage itself may not have been an incidental neighbour to the mass rock. Local information suggests it could have been the residence of a Catholic priest, which would give the cluster of features a coherent logic: a priest living discreetly beside a natural altar, serving a congregation that had no other option. The crucifixion slab, repurposed as structural material, hints at the particular pressures of that era, when sacred objects were quietly folded into domestic fabric to avoid attention or simply to survive.