What makes it worth attention is a deliberate hollow ground into its upper surface, roughly 24 centimetres across and nearly 20 centimetres deep. This is a bullaun stone, a type found at early Christian and pre-Christian sites across Ireland, typically characterised by one or more cup-shaped depressions worn or carved into the rock. Their precise original purpose remains debated; they have been associated with ritual water collection, cursing stones, healing practices, and the grinding of pigments or grain, sometimes all at once depending on who you ask.

The stone at Ballymaclawrence measures about 1.1 metres by 0.6 metres and the hollow sits roughly in the centre of its upper face. It lies to the west of a burial ground and just within the enclosure bank, a position that places it in deliberate relationship with the surrounding sacred landscape rather than at any random point on the site. Early ecclesiastical enclosures of this kind, typically circular or sub-circular earthworks, mark some of the oldest layers of Christian settlement in Ireland, often established between the sixth and ninth centuries on sites that may already have carried spiritual significance. The proximity of the bullaun to both the enclosure boundary and the burial ground suggests it was integrated into the ritual geography of the place from an early period.