Originally laid flat as recumbent grave markers, the slabs were repurposed at some point as upright headstones, planted into the earth in the manner of the 18th and 19th century stones that now surround them in the southern portion of the graveyard. The consequence of this recycling is that a significant portion of each slab sits below the surface, and the carvings they carry are partly or entirely hidden from view.

Most of the slabs are cut from schist, a fine-grained metamorphic rock common in the Wicklow uplands, though four of the twenty, numbers 2, 11, 15 and 16, are of granite. One slab in particular rewards attention. Cross-slab 8, located roughly 15 metres east-south-east of Aghowle Church, is 54cm across, 10cm thick, and 1.25 metres in total length. On its east face, a lightly incised cusped cross runs almost the full height of the stone, its shaft just 8cm wide and narrowing to a pointed tip that closely resembles the tang of a metal cross. A tang is the narrow projecting spike at the base of a metal implement, used to fix it into a handle or mounting, and the imitation of that form in carved stone suggests the carver may have been working from, or at least thinking of, an actual metal processional or altar cross as their model.