Low and broad rather than the tall needle shape that tends to dominate the popular imagination, it presents itself as a slab: roughly 0.6 metres high, with a base measuring 1.3 metres by 0.45 metres. That wide, flat profile gives it a quiet presence in the landscape, something closer to a marker deliberately planted than a monument meant to impress at a distance.

The stone is recorded in the Archaeological Inventory of County Kerry, compiled by Muiris O'Sullivan and Laurence Sheehan, which catalogued prehistoric and early historic monuments across the south-west of the county. Standing stones of this kind are among the most common yet least understood monument types in Ireland. They date broadly to the Bronze Age, though some may be earlier or later, and their original purposes remain debated: boundary markers, ritual focal points, astronomical alignments, and burial indicators have all been proposed at various sites. Without excavation or associated finds, the stone at Gortacloghane keeps its own counsel on the matter.