At just 56 centimetres tall, it is a modest object, trapezoidal in profile and wider at the back than the front, with a neat chamfer along the front edges that speaks to careful dressing by a stonemason who took the work seriously. The front face once carried a clean inscription reading "17 From Galway", placing it exactly seventeen miles out along the road. Severe spalling, the flaking and fracturing of the stone surface over time, has reduced that message to a fragmentary "--/--om/Galway", legible enough to identify but stripped of most of its original authority.

The milestone stands on the east side of the R458 but is no longer in its original position; it has been shifted roughly 50 metres south of where it was first set. It appears, marked as "M.S.", on the 1922 edition of the six-inch Ordnance Survey map, which confirms it was still in place and recognised at that date. Research by the Ardrahan Heritage Group has established that this stone is part of a coherent series, with all nine milestones on the Old Galway Road dating to the 18th century. That road pre-dates the modern national network and would have carried coaches, carts, cattle, and foot traffic through south County Galway long before tarmac and signage made distances a casual afterthought. The milestones were practical infrastructure, telling travellers and coachmen exactly how far they had come and how far remained.