The cross is of the type known as a Latin cross with expanded terminals, meaning the arms flare outward at their ends, a decorative convention associated with early Christian stonework in Ireland. What makes this stone quietly odd is that it was almost certainly raised long before anyone cut that cross into it. The boulder is a prehistoric standing stone, a class of monument erected across Ireland and Britain from the Neolithic period onward, and the Christian inscription appears to have been added later, folding an older sacred object into a new religious framework.

The stone sits on a ridge that borders Brandon Bay, between the mouths of the Owenmore river and the Scorid and Glennahoo rivers, at an elevation of around 102 metres. From this position it commands a wide outlook over the bay, which was itself a significant landscape in early Christian Kerry, lying in the shadow of Mount Brandon, a peak long associated with Saint Brendan. The stone is not alone in its immediate surroundings. Another standing stone lies roughly 220 metres to the north-west, though the rising hillslope hides it from view, and a pair of standing stones about 180 metres to the south-west may once have been visible from this spot. The clustering of these monuments across the ridge suggests the area carried ceremonial or territorial significance long before the early medieval period. The stone itself is a sandstone boulder, roughly oval in plan, 2.6 metres wide and 0.87 metres thick, with fairly straight sides rising to a rounded top, oriented on a north-east to south-west axis. The cross is inscribed on its north-west face.