This is a bullaun stone, a type of ancient carved rock found widely across Ireland, in which deliberately hollowed depressions, or bowls, were cut into the surface. Their exact purpose remains a matter of debate, though they are frequently found in early ecclesiastical settings and have accumulated layers of folklore, often associated with cursing, healing, or devotional practice. What makes the Aghowle example quietly remarkable is not just its four basins but the precision with which they have been documented, and the questions that precision raises.

The stone itself is earthfast, meaning it is fixed in the ground rather than freestanding, and is aligned roughly west-north-west to east-south-east. It measures approximately two metres long, 1.15 metres wide, and stands around forty centimetres high, with a gradual slope on its southern side and a near-vertical northern face. Researcher Chris Corlett, writing in 2019, noted that the bowls are arranged in a roughly linear pattern. The easternmost sits at a corner of the stone and measures thirty centimetres across and twenty-two centimetres deep; beside it is a notably deeper bowl, thirty centimetres wide but thirty-nine centimetres deep, open on one side where it meets the edge of the boulder. Corlett suggested the northern edge of the stone may have been cut away at some point, which would account for that steep vertical face and the open-sided bowl. The two bowls at the western end are shallower. The stone sits within the broader complex of Aghowle, which includes a Romanesque church built on the site of a monastery reputedly founded by St Finden in the sixth century, and a high cross in the graveyard associated with the same saint. The curving boundary of that graveyard is itself thought to follow the line of an original early medieval ecclesiastical enclosure, suggesting the landscape here has been shaped by continuous religious use across many centuries.