Originally laid flat as recumbent grave markers, the majority have been repurposed at some point as upright headstones, slotted into the ground among the 18th and 19th century burial memorials that dominate this part of the cemetery. Standing them upright solved a practical problem for later generations but created another one for anyone trying to study them: the lower portions of most slabs are now buried beneath the surface, taking whatever carvings may exist on those sections permanently out of view.

Cross slabs are among the most enduring physical traces of early Christian devotion in Ireland, typically bearing incised or relief-carved crosses and dating broadly from the early medieval period. At Aghowle, the majority are cut from schist, a locally available metamorphic stone with a naturally layered texture, though four of the twenty, slabs 2, 11, 15, and 16, are granite. One of the more quietly poignant details to emerge from Chris Corlett's 2019 survey is the fate of cross slab 19, found simply lying face down on the ground in the southeast corner of the graveyard. Measuring 80 centimetres long, 35 wide, and 7 centimetres thick, it carries a plain Latin cross worked in very slight relief, the arms and upper transom reaching to the edges of the stone while the shaft stops short of the base. The cross narrows fractionally at the intersection and is further defined by an incised outline, a restrained piece of craftsmanship pressed into the earth and overlooked.

Visitors to Aghowle graveyard who look carefully at the upright headstones in the southern section will notice that some carry no legible inscription at all, or bear a carved cross quite unlike the surrounding 18th and 19th century monuments. These are likely the repurposed slabs. Given how many remain partially buried, the full extent of their decoration may never be known, but slab 19, now presumably visible again after Corlett's discovery, offers a relatively complete example of what the others may once have looked like before centuries of use reshaped their purpose.