Measuring just over a metre in length and roughly 42 centimetres in diameter, the stake was curved along its length, with metal toolmarks visible at both ends. One end appeared to have been deliberately cut and then snapped, a detail that suggests some kind of purposeful working rather than natural breakage or decay.

The Irish Archaeological Wetland Unit at University College Dublin recorded the stake in 1997 as part of broader survey work across Irish peatlands, environments that are well known for their capacity to preserve organic material across centuries or even millennia. The acidity and low oxygen levels in bogland can keep timber in remarkably good condition long after it would have rotted away elsewhere. Despite that preservation, the assessors who later reviewed the find, Caimin O'Brien and Paul Walsh, concluded that the evidence was not sufficient to accept the stake as the remains of an archaeological monument. It sits, officially, in an uncertain category, noted and measured but not classified, a small object that was clearly worked by human hands yet cannot be confidently placed within any known period or structure.