The cross appears to have rested on a stepped base, a detail that links it to a broader tradition of carved slabs found across early medieval Ireland, though most of those remain in situ rather than in a museum case.

The slab was recovered from Lemanaghan, a place whose Irish name, Liath Manchán, points directly to the figure at the centre of its early history. A monastery here was founded in the seventh century by Manchán, a saint whose feast day falls on the 24th of January. The site sits in the bogland of County Offaly, a landscape that preserved much of what might otherwise have been lost or scattered. The fragment was recovered by archaeologist Con Manning and is now held in the National Museum of Ireland, which means the physical object has been separated from the place that produced it, a common enough fate for portable stonework of this kind.

For anyone interested in Manchán's monastery itself, Lemanaghan retains considerable atmosphere, with ecclesiastical remains still present in the area. The cross-slab fragment, however, is best sought in Dublin, where it is held in the National Museum's collections.