The socket, measuring roughly ten centimetres by three, sits precisely at the heart of a three-armed lozenge-shaped cross-head carved in relief, and nobody is entirely certain what it was for. One possibility is that the slab was broken deliberately at some point and then put to a second use, with the socket cut to serve whatever that new purpose required. Another, proposed by local historian R. Harte, is that the socket was always there, built into the original design to hold either a canopy or a reliquary, a small container for holy relics that would have been placed or mounted directly over the grave. The slab is broken immediately below the cross-head, so only the upper portion survives, measuring 0.65 metres in length and widening from 0.45 metres at the top to 0.75 metres beneath the cross-head.

The slab is associated with the medieval church of Newtown Earley and came to light during a graveyard clean-up carried out between 1985 and 1987. Harte published his findings on the tombstones at the site in the Old Kilkenny Review in 1987, placing this piece stylistically in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Graveslabs of this period were typically flat stone markers carved with crosses, inscriptions, or decorative motifs in low relief, and were laid directly over a burial rather than set upright. The lozenge-shaped cross-head here is an unusual form, and the question of whether the socket represents an original liturgical function or a later act of repurposing remains genuinely open. The slab now lies within the church itself, which at least means it has some shelter from the elements.