A sheela-na-gig is a carved stone figure, typically female and explicitly sexual, found on churches and castles across Ireland and Britain; their precise meaning remains debated, though they are thought to predate or sit uneasily alongside orthodox Christian iconography. This one is carved in relief on the south face of a quoin, a dressed cornerstone, at the south-west angle of the old church at Ballynaclogh. It is easy to walk past without noticing it.

The church itself carries several names. It appears in the ecclesiastical taxation of the Diocese of Killaloe in 1302 as the 'Church de Vado Petroso', meaning Stony Ford, a Latin rendering of an older place-name. The site was also recorded under the name Weyperous, and it formed part of the medieval parish of Ballynaclogh. The fabric of the building is roughly coursed limestone rubble, heavily repointed over the years, and the ground plan is a simple nave and chancel arrangement typical of rural Irish medieval churches. Entry was originally through a pointed doorway in the south wall of the nave; a gap in the opposite wall has since been widened and a second doorway inserted. Two single-light windows, one in the north wall and one in the south, once lit the east end of the nave. An early nineteenth-century Protestant church was built immediately to the north-west, and by 1840 a visitor noted that the graveyard was 'much in use' and that the newer church nearby was 'handsome'. Both buildings share the same rectangular enclosure, separated by a few centuries and a significant shift in ecclesiastical allegiance.

The sheela-na-gig is the detail most worth seeking out. It sits low on the south-west corner of the ruined medieval fabric, on the outer face of the stonework, and because the repointing has altered the surface texture of much of the church, the carved quoin reads almost like an anomaly in the masonry. The graveyard remains active, so the site is accessible, though the medieval ruins themselves should be approached with care.