The two crosses are notably different from one another: the north face carries a deeply incised Greek cross, that is, one with four arms of equal length, its terminals expanded into slight flares, while the south face bears a cruder incised cross, rougher in execution and fractionally wider than it is tall. That two distinct hands, or two distinct moments, left their marks on opposite faces of the same upright stone is quietly thought-provoking.

A cashel is a stone-walled early medieval enclosure, typically circular, and this one at Farrandau contains the slab adjacent to its entrance. The stone's exact relationship to the cashel is not entirely straightforward. Writing in 1931, a researcher named Somerville noted that the stone had been standing in the entrance way itself, but judged it was not in its original position even then. It was subsequently moved inside the cashel for safekeeping, so what visitors see today is a stone that has already been displaced at least once, and possibly more than once, from wherever it first stood. That layering of uncertainty, an early Christian carved stone whose precise origin within the site is unknown, is part of what makes it worth attention.