It is gone now, with no traces remaining on site, and were it not for that single image, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland that same year, its existence might have gone entirely unrecorded.

The photograph, taken by Crawford, also revealed something unusual about the high cross itself. Rather than following the typical arrangement of a carved head mounted on a tall shaft, the head sat directly into the base with no shaft between them, a configuration that sets it apart from the more familiar form of Irish high crosses. The small ringed cross beside it, interpreted as the former gable finial of the Monaincha church, represents a type of architectural stonework that was sometimes fashioned to echo the ringed or disc-headed cross form, giving the building's roofline a sculptural identity that matched the crosses placed in the surrounding enclosure. By the time anyone thought to look closely, the finial had vanished from the site entirely.