Among the headstones in the graveyard of Mothel Abbey in County Waterford, one slab carries a detail that sets it apart from its neighbours. A Latin cross carved in relief, with hollowed angles where its arms meet the shaft, covers most of the stone's face. The carving closely mirrors the decoration on a cross-inscribed pillar standing roughly fifty metres to the south of the graveyard, and that similarity is precisely what makes the stone interesting and also uncertain.

The question, as considered by Conleth Manning in a 1981 article in Decies, is whether the headstone is a genuinely early piece, perhaps an Early Christian grave-slab repurposed as a later marker, or whether its design is simply a more recent imitation of the nearby pillar. The stone itself measures just under a metre in height and around sixty-five centimetres wide, with a Latin cross nearly as tall as the slab occupying its surface. Early cross-slabs, which are flat stones incised or carved with a cross and sometimes an inscription, form a recognised category of early medieval monument in Ireland, and genuine examples can date from the sixth century onward. Whether this particular stone belongs to that tradition or was shaped by someone who admired the older pillar nearby and copied its form, the evidence does not firmly settle.