A stoup, typically a shallow vessel set into a wall or mounted on a pillar near a church doorway, allowed the faithful to bless themselves as they entered. This one has long since been separated from its original setting, yet it survives, quietly occupying a domestic garden rather than a ruin or a museum.

The stoup originally belonged to the medieval church of St Kieran, the remains of which still stand nearby. St Kieran, one of the earlier Irish saints associated with the midlands and the diocese of Ossory, lends his name to several ecclesiastical sites across the region. The church at Cappagh is situated close to the Sruhnasilloge river, which runs southwestward through this stretch of Kilkenny, and the stoup now rests in a garden roughly fifty metres to the northwest of that waterway. How it came to be removed from the church and placed in its present location is not recorded, but the transition from sacred to domestic setting is not unusual for small architectural fragments from ruined churches. Stoups, grave slabs, and carved stonework frequently ended up incorporated into field walls, farmyards, or private gardens as old buildings fell out of use and their stones were repurposed or simply collected.