The larger of the two is an irregular slab, roughly 5.5 metres by 3.5 metres, bearing the inscription "E.O.S.1614". It is what was once known as a hospitality stone, a public declaration carved in rock that any passing stranger was welcome to come in and be fed.

The initials and date point to Edmund MacSwiney, and the year 1614 fixes the stone firmly in the early seventeenth century, when the Gaelic custom of open hospitality was being eroded by plantation and the slow dismantling of the old order. Writing in 1750, the historian Charles Smith recorded that the stone's purpose was to signify to all passengers that they should repair to the house of Mr. Edmund MacSwiney for entertainment, meaning food and lodging in the older sense of the word. The Mac Sweeneys, a notable Gaelic family with a castle nearby, were apparently broadcasting their generosity in the most literal way imaginable: by having it inscribed in stone and placed where the road would bring travellers past it. The second stone, which stands upright at 1.15 metres high and 0.3 metres wide, accompanies the hospitality stone on the same platform, though its specific function is less well documented.

The stones remain at the roadside near Mullaghroe House, and the nearby Mac Sweeney castle adds further context to what was clearly an important local seat of power. The hospitality stone in particular rewards a close look, both for the legibility of the inscription after four centuries and for what it implies about the social world that produced it.