On a broad plateau in Graigavalla, County Waterford, there is a standing stone that is no longer standing. By the time of an inspection in 2012, the conglomerate stone had fallen and was lying prostrate on its south-eastern face, its rectangular base exposed to the sky. It is a modest monument in its dimensions, measuring roughly 1.28 metres in total length and with a cross-section of about 0.55 by 0.65 metres, but its horizontal posture gives it a quietly melancholy quality that an upright megalith rarely manages.

Standing stones are among the most ambiguous objects in the Irish archaeological landscape. Erected across a broad sweep of prehistory, they served purposes that remain largely unresolved, ranging from boundary markers and ritual focal points to commemorative monuments for the dead. The Graigavalla stone is made of conglomerate, a sedimentary rock composed of rounded fragments cemented together, which distinguishes it from the more commonly encountered sandstone or limestone examples found elsewhere in Waterford. It was recorded as having no particular orientation, meaning it does not appear to have been deliberately aligned with any cardinal direction or celestial event, a detail that rules out at least one of the more popular explanations for why such stones were placed where they were. Around the spot where it once stood, a waterlogged hollow remains, a depression in the plateau that hints at the disturbance left behind when the stone finally gave way.