The hole is small, roughly fourteen centimetres across, and entirely intentional. Stones like this, found scattered across Ireland, are known as holed stones, and the aperture was not decorative. It was functional, in ways that blur the boundary between the practical and the sacred.

The stone at Caherurlagh sits at the eastern edge of a ringfort, one of the circular earthwork enclosures that remain among the most common archaeological features in the Irish countryside. That positioning is worth noting. Ringforts were typically farmsteads, built during the early medieval period, but their margins often accumulated other kinds of meaning over time. According to a study by Weir published in 1980, this particular stone was used for healing purposes, placing it within a tradition of curative stones found across Ireland and Britain, where sufferers might pass a limb or even an infant through the hole as part of a ritual seeking relief from illness. The stone had at some point fallen and become partially embedded in the ground, but local people had it re-erected within the two decades or so before 2023, suggesting the site retained some significance to those living near it.

The stone lies on top of an east-west ridge on a south-facing slope, which means it would have been a visible landmark in the local landscape. It measures 2.35 metres in length, substantial enough to have taken some effort to raise again. The act of re-erecting it, quietly and without much public record, is perhaps the most telling detail of all.