It is not lost in any dramatic sense; it simply sits, unconfirmed, somewhere on land that was once worked as Springfield farm, waiting to be noticed by someone who knows what they are looking for.

The record of the cross comes from Ó hEailidhe, writing in 1959, who noted a cross base cut directly into a flattish granite boulder lying near what he called 'the old packhorse road'. A cross base of this kind would originally have held an upright stone cross, the socket or shaped depression in the boulder serving as the fixing point for the shaft above. The packhorse road itself is a detail worth pausing on: these were the well-worn routes used by laden animals before wheeled transport became reliable, often following ridgelines or connecting market towns, and they frequently passed wayside crosses that marked boundaries, guided travellers, or indicated stopping points for prayer. The cross at Carrickmines would have belonged to that tradition, its granite base shaped from local stone and set into the landscape as a quiet fixture of daily movement through the area.

The difficulty for any curious visitor is straightforward: the precise location has not been established. Geraldine Stout and Padraig Clancy, who compiled the record as it stands, note simply that the cross has not been precisely located. Springfield farm and the line of the old packhorse road offer some orientation if you are inclined to look, but this is less a site to visit than a site to be aware of. Carrickmines itself sits in an area of south County Dublin that has seen considerable development, and fragments of earlier landscapes can survive in unexpected corners. If you are walking the area and come across a low, flattish granite boulder with a shaped depression that does not look entirely natural, it may be worth a second glance.