The fragment, which measures just 32 centimetres long and 22 centimetres wide, was spotted by Dr. Eve Campbell beside St Senan's Bed, a site associated with the sixth-century monastic founder of this small island in the Shannon Estuary. That a piece of decorated stonework could be quietly incorporated into a field wall, its carved face turned outward or inward without apparent ceremony, is not unusual in Ireland; old carved stones were frequently reused as convenient building material once their original context had been lost or forgotten. What makes this particular piece worth pausing over is what the carving reveals about what once stood here.

The incised decoration on the fragment appears to belong to a wheeled cross, that is, a cross form enclosed within a circle, rendered in parallel lines and set above a panel of geometric ornament. Only a portion of that geometric panel survives on the remaining piece, so the full design can only be partially reconstructed. Cross-slabs, which are flat stones carved with a cross and sometimes additional ornament, were a common feature of early Irish monastic sites, used as grave markers or devotional objects. The wall into which this fragment was built appears on the 25-inch Ordnance Survey map but is absent from the earlier 6-inch map, which places its construction somewhere in the later nineteenth century, suggesting the stone had already lost its recognised significance by that point. Within a few metres to the north, a second cross-slab lies flat on the ground, though its decoration is markedly different in character, hinting that Scattery once had a richer collection of carved stonework than what now survives in place.

The fragment has since been removed to the island's visitor centre, where it can be seen alongside documentation of its discovery. For anyone making the short boat crossing from Kilrush to Scattery, the area around St Senan's Bed rewards careful attention; the proximity of the recumbent cross-slab to the north of the wall means that two very different examples of early medieval stone carving survive within a small compass, despite the losses the site has clearly sustained over the centuries.