That detail alone signals that something has gone quietly wrong over the centuries. The cross is almost certainly not standing where it originally stood, and the awkward sideways orientation is a physical record of a fragment that has been lost, moved, and reassembled at some point in its history.

The cross head, measuring roughly 1.41 metres tall and 1.36 metres wide, belongs to a type known as a ringed or high cross, in which a solid ring connects the arms and the central shaft. Here the ring is plain but framed with a moulding around the edges of both faces, and each side carries five simple raised bosses, rounded projections that appear frequently on early medieval Irish stonework. The base, which researchers consider to be probably original to the cross even if the present arrangement is not, is a substantial granite block tapering slightly from bottom to top. One of its larger panels bears a ringless cross carved in false relief, meaning the cross shape is defined by the surrounding stone being cut away rather than the cross itself being raised, with a single central boss and arms that flare outward at the terminals. The church site is thought to preserve the location of the medieval parish church dedicated to St. Munna, a figure associated with early Irish monasticism, which gives the fragment a context stretching back well before the present building.

The cross sits in the graveyard and can be seen by visitors to the churchyard at Poulmarl. The base is worth examining on both sides, as only one panel carries the carved decoration; the others are plain granite.