It is roughly 24 centimetres long, with bulging eyes set near the top of the skull, no nose to speak of, a long neck, and a chin defined by a single curving groove. The hair falls to about ear length. Directly beneath it, three rectangular stone blocks are arranged one above two, and together they carry a sequence of carvings and a partially legible inscription that reads "ST. COE[ ]" and below that "NE 433", the letters worn or obscured where the brackets fall. One block bears a cross pattée, a heraldic cross whose arms broaden toward equal-length ends; another shows two angels. Elsewhere on the same wall, an incised cross pattée and a soul-effigy, both in a naïve, unschooled style, appear beside the embrasure of a round-headed window.

The church itself, St Conlan's, is largely destroyed, its roughly coursed limestone fabric reduced mainly to this south wall and the concrete rendering that has partly obscured the east end. By 1837, Samuel Lewis was recording the site as the supposed oratory of the O'Brien family, and he noted the carved head alongside an inscription he read as "St. Coonna, 434." The number presumably refers to a patron saint's feast day in some calendrical or devotional reckoning, though the damaged lettering has made the name and precise figure difficult to confirm. A holy well nearby, still known as St Coulan's Well, preserves another thread of the same local dedication, linking the ruined church to a wider pattern of early Christian veneration in the landscape.