What makes them unusual is their chamfering, the angled cutting of the stone's edges that was a characteristic feature of dressed architectural stonework, most commonly associated with doorways, windows, and arched openings in ecclesiastical or defensive buildings. These are not rough field stones shaped by weather; they were worked deliberately, probably in the sixteenth century, for some structure that no longer survives in any obvious form.

The blocks sit in the graveyard to the south of the church at An Gróbh, in County Kerry. Their original purpose is unknown, but the craftsmanship suggests they once formed part of a more ambitious building, likely a church or chapel of the late medieval period. At some point, whether through the collapse or demolition of that structure, the stones became available, and rather than be carted away or buried, they were repurposed as markers for the dead. This kind of material reuse is not unusual in Irish graveyards, where the boundary between building material and memorial has always been a flexible one, but it is relatively rare to find worked architectural fragments repurposed so directly. The detail was recorded by J. Cuppage and colleagues in the Archaeological Survey of the Dingle Peninsula, published in 1986 by Oidhreacht Chorca Duibhne.

For anyone walking the graveyard at An Gróbh, the blocks are worth looking at closely. The chamfered edges, smooth and deliberate against the rougher faces of the stone, are the clearest sign that these objects had a previous life in a building that has otherwise left very little trace.