This kind of motif, a single spiralling path curving inward through a series of concentric turns, appears across prehistoric rock art in western Europe, but examples in Ireland are relatively rare, which gives the Lockstown find an unusual weight.

The stone was unearthed in 1908 and subsequently became known as the Holywood stone, a name that stuck despite its Wicklow origins. It was studied and written about in the early twentieth century, with references appearing in work published by Orpen in 1911 and by Price and Walshe in 1933. By 1986 it had been formally catalogued as rock art in the Sites and Monuments Record. The stone itself, however, had long since left Lockstown. It is now held at the Visitor Centre at Glendalough, the early medieval monastic site a short distance to the north-west in the same county, where it can be examined up close.

For anyone visiting Glendalough, the Holywood stone is worth seeking out inside the visitor centre rather than treating it as a footnote to the round tower and the churches outside. The labyrinth carving is the kind of thing that rewards a slow look: a deceptively simple design that opens up questions about who made it, when, and what it meant to them, none of which have been fully settled.