The stone arrived from Kilshane townland, where a medieval church and graveyard still stand, but nobody recorded precisely where it was found within that landscape, or under what circumstances it was moved. That gap in the record makes it an object of quiet uncertainty, and objects of quiet uncertainty tend to reward a closer look.

What the stone is, physically, is reasonably clear. A bullaun stone is a boulder, usually of some antiquity, in which one or more cup-shaped hollows have been deliberately ground or worn into the surface. The hollows were used for a variety of purposes across different periods, from grinding grain or pigment to functions that were more ritual in character, often associated with early Christian sites and holy wells. This particular example is a sandstone and quartz conglomerate boulder, roughly circular in plan, measuring about 72 centimetres across and 45 centimetres deep. Its depression was once substantial, nearly 38 centimetres in diameter and 29 centimetres deep, but the edge of the bowl has since broken away on one side, reducing the surviving depth at that point to just 4 centimetres. That damage means the stone no longer holds water as it once might have done, and it changes the sense of the object considerably. What was a vessel of sorts is now open on one side, more like a wound than a hollow.

The Kilshane church and graveyard with which the stone is associated are medieval in date, though bullaun stones frequently predate the ecclesiastical sites beside which they are found, suggesting use across a long span of time and possibly shifting meanings. The stone is now at the Folk Museum at the Rock of Cashel, which at least places it in a setting alert to the depth of the surrounding landscape, even if the original relationship between this particular boulder and the ground it came from cannot now be recovered.