The piece is modest in size, roughly 36 centimetres tall and 48 centimetres wide, irregularly shaped, and only five centimetres thick. On one face, incised lettering in lower case spells out what appears to read "[n?]each", the opening letter uncertain enough to warrant a question mark in the record. On the opposite face, a small circular depression is cut into the stone. Whether that hollow is decorative, functional, or simply the result of age is unclear.

What makes the slab particularly curious is that it did not originate in Galway at all. It was found on Inchbofin island in Lough Ree, Co. Westmeath, a place with a long and layered ecclesiastical past. Inchbofin, meaning the island of the white cow in Irish, sits in one of Ireland's largest lakes and was home to an early medieval monastic settlement. Incised slabs of this kind, flat stones marked with lettering or simple crosses, are commonly associated with early Christian burial and memorial traditions in Ireland, and the partial inscription here, tantalisingly incomplete, may once have formed part of a name or a dedication. How and when the slab made its way from a Westmeath lake island to its present location in Raheen is not recorded.