It is easy to overlook, standing just 45 centimetres tall and only 6 centimetres thick, yet it occupies one of the more dramatically situated positions of any early Christian monument in Ireland, on a narrow col between the island's two peaks, hundreds of metres above the Atlantic.

The cross is described as rough stone, uncut and undecorated, of the kind that early monastic communities on the island would have used to mark paths, boundaries, or stations of prayer. Christ's Saddle sits along the approach route to the famous sixth-century monastery higher up the rock, and waymarking crosses of this type were a common feature of early Irish pilgrimage sites, placed at intervals to guide or to sanctify the journey. The cross stands close to a poorly preserved wall, suggesting it once formed part of a broader organised landscape on the island, rather than being an isolated object. Its dimensions, recorded in the 1996 archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan, have remained consistent across subsequent research.

Christ's Saddle is reached by climbing the ancient stone steps that ascend from the landing areas, and the cross sits near the point where those ascending the final stretch towards the monastery would pause before the last effort. The surrounding wall, though fragmentary, hints at the degree to which every part of this small island was once purposefully arranged by the monks who lived there.