It arrived as a refugee of sorts, rescued before a valley was drowned, carrying on its upper surface two worn hollows that speak to a use no one now fully understands.

Bullaun stones are boulders or slabs into which one or more cup-shaped depressions have been ground, most likely over long periods of repeated ritual or practical use. They are found across Ireland, often near ecclesiastical sites or water, and this particular example was originally located just inside a field fence to the west of a road, close to the south bank of the River Lee near Farranavarrigane. It does not appear on Ordnance Survey six-inch maps from 1842 or 1901, but by 1938 it had been recorded in that position. Before the flooding of the Lee Valley as part of the Lee Hydro-Electric Scheme, which created the reservoirs now known as Lough Allua and Inniscarra and Carrigadrohid reservoirs, the stone was moved across the road into Macloneigh graveyard for safekeeping. The researcher Fahy, writing in 1957 before the relocation took place, recorded its dimensions and noted two hollows on the upper surface: one circular depression measuring roughly 31 centimetres across and 16 centimetres deep, set on a steeply sloping plane, and a smaller, shallower hollow on the level section of the stone, approximately six inches in diameter and an inch and a half deep. The stone itself is irregular in shape, measuring about 1.1 metres by 0.7 metres, with a height of 0.34 metres.

The graveyard at Macloneigh is the stone's permanent home now, the original riverside location long submerged. Visitors to the site can find it there, a quietly displaced object that carries the marks of hands and water from a landscape that no longer exists above the waterline.