Despite standing over two metres tall, it went unrecorded on the Ordnance Survey's six-inch maps of 1842 and 1904, which is a quietly remarkable omission given how methodically those surveys catalogued the Irish landscape.

The stone itself is subrectangular in plan, meaning it has a roughly rectangular cross-section with slightly irregular edges, and measures 2.1 metres in height with a base approximately 1.05 metres by 0.82 metres. Its long axis runs northeast to southwest, a directional alignment that recurs across many Irish standing stones and has prompted much speculation about prehistoric astronomical or ceremonial intent, though no firm conclusions apply universally. It sits in pasture on a northeast-facing slope at Gortavehy, which places it in the quiet agricultural interior of mid Cork rather than among the more frequently visited prehistoric landscapes of the county's western peninsulas. Standing stones of this kind are generally thought to date from the Bronze Age, though precise dating remains difficult without associated finds or excavation, and their original purpose, whether as territorial markers, ritual focal points, or something else entirely, remains genuinely uncertain.