Stones like these, known loosely as holed or perforated stones, turn up occasionally at early ecclesiastical sites across Ireland, but they remain poorly understood, and the examples at Kilmore are stranger still for what sets them apart from the more familiar type.

The better-known perforated stones in Kerry tend to be tall pillar stones, some bearing ogham inscriptions, the ancient Irish script carved in notches along a stone's edge, or early cross motifs. Fine examples survive at Reask, Kilfountain, and Kilmalkedar on the Dingle Peninsula. The Kilmore slabs are a different matter entirely. As researcher Dunne noted in 2012, they are low slate slabs rather than upright pillars, and their hour-glass perforations make them stylistically and physically distinct from the early medieval pillar type. Dunne linked them instead to a cluster of comparable examples he had identified at several other Kerry graveyards in the years prior, suggesting a regional tradition that had gone largely unnoticed. One of the five, recorded as perforated stone number one, stands beside a notched headstone that also carries an inscribed cross, a pairing that hints at a local grammar of stone-working that archaeologists are still working to read.

The graveyard lies close to the ruins of the medieval church, and the stones are recorded as standing rather than lying flat, which makes them easier to spot among the other grave markers. The hour-glass shape of the perforations, narrowing at the centre, is the detail most worth looking for once you are there.