A leacht is a low cairn or mound associated with early Christian devotional practice, often marking a place of prayer or commemoration, and the fact that this cross sits at its northern end suggests it was a deliberate, meaningful placement rather than an incidental survival. There is something quietly insistent about an object that size holding its position on an island this remote.

Inishvickillane, known in Irish as Inis Mhic Aoibhleáin, lies seven miles south-west of Slea Head and nine miles from the nearest embarkation point at Dunquin pier on the Dingle Peninsula. The island covers 199 acres and is the most southerly of the Blasket group. At its south-eastern end, on the eastern slopes of a prominent rocky bluff, lies an Early Christian monastic settlement, and it is within this complex that the cross stands. The cross itself measures 1.06 metres high and 0.42 metres wide. Early Christian monasticism in Ireland produced a remarkable number of island sites along the western seaboard, where small communities sought isolation and proximity to the sea as part of their religious discipline. Inishvickillane fits squarely into that tradition, though it receives far less attention than its more famous neighbour, Skellig Michael.