In a graveyard at Mainham, County Kildare, there stands a limestone slab that is almost entirely cross. The stone measures just over a metre in height and tapers gently from a width of 0.73 metres at the top down to 0.61 metres at the base, yet it is remarkably thin, no more than ten centimetres at its thickest point. Carved into its east-facing surface is a ringed Latin cross, a form in which a ring or circle connects the arms near their junction, occupying nearly the full height of the slab. The proportions are quietly striking: the cross itself stands 0.97 metres tall on a stone only 1.17 metres high, leaving very little of the surface unaccounted for.

Beyond its presence in the graveyard at Mainham, the specific history of the slab is not well documented. What can be said is that cross-inscribed slabs of this general type are among the earlier forms of Christian funerary and devotional marking found across Ireland, often predating the more elaborate sculptured high crosses associated with monastic sites. The ringed Latin cross carved here is a plain, incised design rather than a relief carving, suggesting a relatively simple and direct mode of production. Whether it originally served as a grave marker, a boundary stone, or some other devotional purpose is a question the stone itself does not answer.