Above the cross, in a single horizontal line, runs an inscription that begins "ORDOMAE" and then stops, broken off where a chunk of the top right corner of the slab has been lost. Whatever name or prayer that incomplete text once recorded has been unreadable for centuries.

The island in question, Inis Cealtra, sits in Lough Derg on the Shannon and carries the remains of a remarkable Early Christian monastic settlement. This particular cross-slab, which measures 1.39 metres in height, 0.56 metres in width, and 0.9 metres in thickness, forms part of a composite grave, meaning it was used alongside other stones to mark or cover a single burial. The scholar R.A.S. Macalister noted it in 1916-17 and placed it as twelfth-century in type, while a more detailed study by Okasha and Forsyth, published in 2001, gave the precise measurements and described the condition of the face. The slab is dressed, meaning its surface was worked smooth before the cross and inscription were cut, and the cross itself is incised in outline rather than raised in relief, a style common on medieval Irish grave-markers. The fragment of lettering is too short and too damaged to recover its full meaning with certainty, though the opening letters suggest a personal name or a dedicatory formula that would once have identified whoever lay beneath.