To pass it without knowing its name would be easy enough. But locally it is called the mass rock, and that name carries the full weight of a period in Irish history when the practice of Catholicism was, under the Penal Laws, outlawed or severely restricted.

Mass rocks are found scattered across Ireland, particularly in the more remote landscapes of Munster and Connacht. They were the makeshift altars used by Catholic priests during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when celebrating Mass in a church was forbidden or dangerous, and congregations gathered instead in fields, on hillsides, or along quiet laneways like this one. The priest would use a flat stone as an altar, with a lookout posted nearby in case of approach by soldiers or informers. The stones themselves are rarely elaborate; what they are is functional, and this one at Mishells is no exception. A plain sandstone block, shaped by nature rather than a mason's hand, repurposed for a clandestine liturgy in the open air.