The stone measures just 22 centimetres high by 43 centimetres wide, and whatever words were once carved into its face have been worn to near-nothing by weather and time. Three fragmentary lines survive, their letters broken by gaps: something ending in what might be "NDEW", a second line with the shape of "MN" and "ON", and a third that yields only "M", "T", "M", and "I". It is the kind of inscription that feels close to legible, close enough to be tantalising, but refuses to give itself up.

The slab is thought to be a memorial stone, the type of inscribed marker traditionally cut to record a name, a date, and sometimes a brief phrase of commemoration. How it came to be built into a farm wall is unclear, but the suspicion is that it did not originate there. It may have been taken from a castle, now unlocated, somewhere in the surrounding area. The reuse of dressed or inscribed stonework from earlier structures in later farm buildings was common practice in rural Ireland; a shaped stone was simply too useful to leave standing in a ruin. The result is that fragments of significant fabric ended up mortared into byres, boundary walls, and field enclosures across the country, sometimes at eye level and sometimes not noticed for generations.