It has no inscription, no carved ornament, no dedicatory mark of any kind. What it does have is a small hole near the base of its interior, a back edge that appears to have been wrenched away from a wall, and a quietly unresolved history that has occupied researchers on and off since 1964.

The font came to the attention of the National Museum of Ireland that year, described in an Office of Public Works file as having been found near an old "religeen" in the townland of Balisland, close to Shillelagh in south Wicklow. A religeen, in Irish usage, refers to a small informal burial ground, often predating or existing outside formal parish organisation, sometimes associated with the unbaptised or with very early Christian communities. The stone itself was measured with some care: fourteen inches wide, twenty inches long, and seven and a half inches tall on the outside; eleven inches wide, sixteen inches long, and five inches deep on the inside. The front face is rounded, the sides straight, and the bottom of the interior cavity narrows slightly rather than sitting flat. Despite the drain hole and the wall-mounting evidence, which together suggest active liturgical use, possibly as a baptismal or holy water vessel, the object carries no decoration whatsoever. Just plain stone, as the original description put it. Its original location was recorded as a burial ground in the Balisland area, but sometime after 1964 the font was moved, and its present whereabouts are unknown.