It is easy to step past without a second look. But this recumbent stone, measuring just over one and a half metres in length and tapering slightly from head to foot, carries a ringed cross carved in relief that places it within a tradition of early medieval Irish stonecutting reaching far beyond Kerry.

The slab bears a ringed cross, the type familiar from the great free-standing high crosses of Ireland, but here rendered on a horizontal grave or commemorative stone rather than raised upright. The cross-shaft widens gradually from just below the ring down to a two-stepped plinth at the base, and the spaces between the cross-arms and the encircling ring, known as spandrels, are filled with carved volutes and a central boss. These spiral volute forms are closely comparable to the decorative vocabulary found on the high crosses at Drumcliffe in Sligo, Kells in Meath, and Monasterboice in Louth. The slab's overall form also connects it to cross-slabs at Dalkey Island, Saggart, Lismore, and Gallen. It was probably carved in the late eleventh or early twelfth century, though ringed-cross designs continued to appear on similar slabs as late as the sixteenth century, which makes precise dating difficult. The island's monastic community, long associated with early learning and the compilation of the Annals of Inisfallen, would have been the likely context for a piece of this quality.

Innisfallen island is accessible by rowing boat from Ross Castle near Killarney, and the abbey ruins are open to the sky, so the slab is exposed to the elements. Visitors entering through the south wall of the nave pass it almost immediately, though without knowing what to look for, the carved surface can read as little more than weathered stone.