It came from Sceilg Mhichíl, the pyramid of sea-cliff rising out of the Atlantic off the Kerry coast, where early medieval monks built one of the most remote monastic settlements in the Christian world. The cross was recovered from the main ecclesiastical complex on the north-eastern peak of the island, a cluster of stone oratories, cells, and grave slabs that the community shaped by hand without mortar, in conditions that most people today would find barely survivable.

The object itself is modest in scale. At 0.16 metres long and 0.15 metres wide, it would fit comfortably in a coat pocket. It has two short arms, one of them partially damaged, and a rounded head. The shaft is gone, which means the cross as it survives is essentially just the head, suggesting it may once have been a complete processional or grave marker of the kind commonly associated with early Irish monasticism. Stone crosses of this type, often small and unadorned, served devotional and liturgical purposes within the enclosed space of a monastic site. This one is now held at the National Monuments Depot in Killarney, under the care of the Office of Public Works, which manages Sceilg Mhichíl as a national monument and UNESCO World Heritage Site.