Fonts of this kind were carved to hold water for the Christian rite of baptism, and this one is unusual precisely because so little of it survives yet so much can still be read from what remains. One side has broken clean away, and the break itself is informative: it tells us the block was originally wider than its current 0.48 metres, meaning we are looking at a fragment of something larger.

What survives is a rectangular granite block measuring 0.73 metres in length and 0.4 metres in thickness, with a basin carved into its upper surface to a depth of 0.21 metres. The sides of the basin are almost vertical, and traces of the rim persist along three sides, though it is considerably damaged. The rim was probably flat originally. There is no drain hole visible, though it is possible that the hole, if there ever was one, disappeared with the missing side. The stone is granite, which is geologically characteristic of much of this part of Wicklow, and its squared, utilitarian form suggests a functional rather than decorative approach to the carving. Beyond the physical description, the historical record for this particular object is thin, and the site at Kilmartin that once gave it a context has left few other traces to work with.