Yet this particular cross slab, positioned close to the flight of steps that rises from Christ's Valley towards the ecclesiastical complex on the north-eastern peak, is quietly doing something the grander structures are not: marking the threshold between the ordinary world of the ascent and the sacred enclosure above.

The slab is unassuming in the way that early medieval Irish stonework often is, shaped not by fine tools but by a kind of purposeful roughness. It tapers from a broad base up to a rounded head, and on its south-western face carries a Latin cross, a cross form with arms of equal length and a longer vertical shaft, grooved rather than carved in relief, with bulbous, slightly swollen terminals at each arm. It measures just over a metre in height and leans noticeably to the south-west, as if the Atlantic wind had opinions about its orientation. The slab was documented by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan in their 1996 archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula, published by Cork University Press, which remains one of the more thorough records of early Christian material culture along this coastline.

The cross itself is easy to miss precisely because it is not monumental. It sits at roughly shoulder height, set into the rock beside a path that demands your attention for the footing rather than the scenery. If you are climbing towards the monastery complex, it appears on your left as the steps begin their steeper approach to the summit enclosure, a small, inclining slab that has been marking that transition for well over a thousand years.