What makes it quietly remarkable is a layer of complexity beneath that: fret patterns and interlaced designs were carved over the original cross work as a palimpsest, meaning a later hand used the stone's surface as though it were a page to be written on again, the older imagery not erased but absorbed into something new. The slab measures 87 centimetres long and 59 centimetres wide, modest in size but dense with intention.

The stone originates from the early monastic site of An Riasc, set within the Calluragh burial ground known in Irish as An Cheallúnach, on the highest point of its townland roughly 1.25 kilometres east of Ballyferriter on the Dingle Peninsula. The location looks north over Smerwick Harbour, a placement that feels deliberate rather than incidental. The slab is one of several cross-inscribed pillars and slabs associated with this site, and its history since leaving the ground is itself a story of dispersal and recovery. It was at some point removed to Adare Manor in County Limerick, a fate it shared with at least one other stone from the same group, before eventually making its way into the collections of the National Museum. It has since been moved again and is now held at Músaem Chorca Dhuibhne in Baile an Fheirtéaraigh, the local museum serving the Corca Dhuibhne area, where it can be studied at closer quarters than any open-air site would permit. The 1986 archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula by J. Cuppage remains the foundational reference for understanding the broader An Riasc complex from which it came.