These so-called saint's stones, found scattered across Ireland, are typically boulders or outcrops bearing cup-shaped depressions, cross-carvings, or foot-prints said to have been made by a saint in the act of prayer or passage. The water that collects in their hollows was often believed to carry curative properties, and local patterns or rounds, informal rituals of circumambulation and prayer, were sometimes performed at them well into the modern era.

The particular history of this stone at Knockaun, including which saint may have been associated with it, what markings if any it carries, and how it was used by local communities, remains obscure for the moment. What is certain is that it was considered significant enough to be formally recorded as a monument, placing it in the same broad tradition of venerated natural and semi-natural objects that were woven into the devotional landscape of rural Ireland long before, and long after, the formal structures of the church took root.