Bullaun stones are boulders or slabs bearing one or more rounded depressions ground into their surface, almost certainly by human hands, and are typically associated with early medieval ecclesiastical sites across Ireland. Their precise function remains a matter of debate, though they are thought to have served ritual, votive, or practical purposes, and are frequently found in the company of ancient churches, holy wells, and graveyards.

This particular stone was recorded by Cuppage in 1986 as having been removed from its earlier setting and built into the boundary wall of the graveyard at Killiney, in the Dingle Peninsula. That kind of secondary use was not unusual; builders throughout Irish history routinely incorporated older stones into field walls, church foundations, and enclosure boundaries, often with little ceremony. At some point after that, the stone was lifted out of the graveyard wall again and moved a second time, this time to Castlegregory, where it found its present resting place in the chapel yard. It is a small but telling journey: from an early medieval site at Killiney, into the fabric of a graveyard wall, and finally into the keeping of a modern parish.