The cross measures 0.85 metres long and 0.42 metres wide, and is only 0.06 metres thick, which makes it a fairly slight object by the standards of early medieval Irish stonework. One arm has broken off entirely, and beneath the surviving arm there is a rudimentary notch, the kind of simple shaping that defines the form without elaborating on it. What gives the stone an added layer of interest is a fault line running vertically through it, carrying with it some inclusions of quartz. The person who shaped this cross, or selected the raw stone for it, worked with a piece of material that was already fractured from within. Whether that fault contributed to the eventual loss of the arm is impossible to say, but it seems likely. The quartz would have caught what little light reaches this part of the island, small bright flecks in an otherwise sombre grey surface.

The cross sits on the wall bordering the graveyard where the monks of Sceilg Mhichíl were buried, a community that maintained a presence on this Atlantic rock from around the sixth or seventh century until the twelfth. Objects like this one, rough and functional rather than elaborately carved, are a reminder that not everything made in that period was intended to impress. Some things were simply made to mark, to signal, to endure.