That spare description is, for the moment, almost everything that can be said with confidence. Cross-inscribed stones are among the more quietly compelling survivals of early medieval Ireland: boulders, slabs, or standing stones into which someone, at some point, cut the form of a cross, often a simple incised outline, sometimes more elaborate, occasionally accompanied by other markings. They turn up at the edges of fields, beside holy wells, in old graveyards, or simply in the open landscape, their original purpose ranging from boundary markers to devotional objects to grave memorials. The one at Glenballyvally belongs to this scattered and poorly understood category of monument.

Beyond its existence and its location, the documented record for this particular stone is currently thin. Cross-inscribed stones as a class began appearing in Ireland from roughly the fifth and sixth centuries onward, associated with the spread of Christianity and the marking of sacred or significant ground. Some were reused prehistoric standing stones, given new meaning by the addition of Christian carving. Others were created specifically as markers. Without further detail about the Glenballyvally example, whether it is a standing stone, a recumbent slab, or something else entirely, it sits in the record as a placeholder, a named but not yet fully described presence in the Kilkenny landscape.