²⁹O'Sullivan, Jerry, and Tomás Ó Carragáin. Inishmurray: Monks and Pilgrims in an Atlantic Landscape. Cork: Collins, 2008. 81.
Of the ritual undertaken by pregnant women, Wakeman wrote: "In connexion with this pillar a custom, which is worthy of record, very generally prevails. Women who expect shortly to become mothers are wont hither to resort for the purpose of praying for a happy issue from the perils of their impending travail. The natives assert that death in childbirth is an unknown calamity upon the island. The postulants kneel, passing their thumbs into the front, and their fingers into the side openings, by which means a firm grasp of the angles of the stone is obtained. They are thus enabled to rise from their act of obeisance with a minimum of strain or difficulty." (Wakeman, W. F., and James Mills. A Survey of the Antiquarian Remains on the Island of Inismurray. London: Williams & Norgate, 1893. 76-78.)