It is small enough to hold in two hands, measuring just 23 centimetres in length and 16 centimetres wide, and what remains of it is a rounded head and the stumps of arms, the lower portions of which are gone entirely, along with the whole of the shaft.

Skellig Michael, the precipitous island rising from the sea some twelve kilometres off the Kerry coast, was home to one of the most remote early Christian monastic settlements in Europe. Monks established themselves there, probably from around the sixth or seventh century, building dry-stone beehive cells and oratories on a narrow saddle of rock more than 150 metres above the Atlantic. Small stone crosses were a common feature of such communities, marking boundaries, graves, or places of prayer. This particular cross, now barely a fragment, was removed from the island at some point and passed into state care, its current registered location given as Carrigafreaghane in County Kerry rather than the island where it was made. The cross's poor state of preservation makes it difficult to say much more about its original form or precise function, though its rounded head is a type commonly associated with early medieval Irish stonework.