Known as the Alphabet Stone, it sits within the Early Christian and medieval ecclesiastical complex at Kilmalkedar on the Dingle Peninsula, where the ground shelters beneath the western slopes of Reenconnell hill, with Smerwick Harbour visible to the north.

The stone is inscribed on multiple faces, each telling a slightly different story. The western side bears the abbreviated invocation DNI, a contraction of the Latin Domini, meaning "of the Lord", alongside the Latin alphabet rendered in half-uncial script, the rounded, careful letterforms used by early medieval scribes. The scholar Ludwig Bieler, writing in 1949, proposed a date in the second half of the sixth century for this inscription on the basis of the epigraphy, placing it firmly in the period when Irish monasticism was beginning to produce its most distinctive material culture. The southern face carries a Latin cross with scrolled terminals, and above it the partial remains of a cross-in-circle motif, probably sharing the same decorative vocabulary. On the northern face only a scrolled terminal and the stem of a cross have survived, the rest worn or lost. The stone itself is broken across the top, so whatever completed it is gone.

The presence of the alphabet has prompted considerable scholarly interest. Inscribed alphabets on early medieval stones are rare in Ireland, and their purpose is not fully settled; suggestions range from literacy exercises to ritual or protective functions, perhaps linked to the sanctification of a sacred space. Whatever its original intent, the stone now stands on a modern base, repositioned beside the chancel arch, where the inscriptions on each face can be examined in turn.