That tension between what is known and what remains uncertain is, in many ways, the defining quality of this object. Ogham is an early medieval script, most commonly found on standing stones in Ireland and Wales, in which letters are represented by a series of notches and strokes cut along the edge or face of a stone. This particular example carries its inscription in a boustrophedon arrangement, meaning the text runs in alternating directions, up one angle and back down another, a format that already signals an unusual or experimental hand at work.

The stone was recovered from either Askive Woods, described as lying opposite Parknasilla, or from the Derrgariff mountain-side between Kenmare and Parknasilla, depending on which source you consult. Macalister placed it in Askive Woods in his 1947 account, while Rhys gave the Derrgariff location in an earlier record cited by Macalister in 1897. Both sites fall within the barony of Dunkerron North in County Kerry. At some point the stone was moved to Parknasilla House before eventually entering the collection of the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. The inscription, read by Macalister in 1945 as S[M] . . . . BNAG MA[Q?]QI ERCIA, is described as poorly preserved, and later scholarship has complicated that reading further. An unpublished MA thesis by Moore noted that the scores on the right-hand angle stop short of the top edge of the stone, suggesting that a diagonal cross enclosed in a rough rectangular frame, carved on the face between the two inscribed angles, may be contemporary with or even earlier than the ogham text itself. Moore also dismissed Macalister's reading of certain letters, including a possible M at the start and the E in the final word.

The stone is held at the National Museum of Ireland, and visitors to the museum's collection will find it catalogued under the Kerry record KE073-017. For those who want to examine the epigraphy in detail without travelling to Dublin, the stone has been digitised as part of the Ogham in 3D project run by the School of Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies; their database entry, accessible at ogham.celt.dias.ie, allows high-resolution inspection of the surface, which is particularly useful given how much of the inscription is worn. The cross feature, sitting quietly between the ogham angles, is easy to overlook in photographs but rewards close attention, as its relationship to the inscription text remains an open question.