That doubling is unusual in itself, but the cross on the west side may not be quite what it appears: writing in 1937, O'Connell observed that it seems to be a more modern copy of the carving on the east face, raising the quiet question of who felt compelled to replicate an already ancient design, and when.

The slab itself is a substantial piece of work, standing 1.6 metres tall, 0.82 metres wide, and just 6 centimetres thick, and it is aligned north to south. The ringed cross, a form in which a circle intersects the arms of the cross, is carved centrally on each face and measures 1.18 metres in height. The design is confident and deliberate: the head of the cross rises above the ring, the arms push outward to the very edges of the slab, and the shaft descends all the way to the present ground level, where it presumably continues beneath the soil. Children's burial grounds of this kind, known in Irish as cilliní, were used for the interment of unbaptised infants, who were excluded from consecrated churchyard ground under Catholic practice; they are found across Ireland, often at ancient or liminal sites, and frequently carry their own quiet gravity. What makes the Inch slab stranger still is a detail noticed only recently: a faint carving of a bird on the east face, positioned at the top of the shaft, just below where the ring begins. It is easy to miss, and for a long time apparently was.