This is ogham, an early medieval Irish script in which letters are encoded as groups of strokes cut along the edge of a stone, and the inscription here, running up the north-east angle, reads QENILOCI MAQI MAQI-AINIA MUC, with the final word trailing off into damage or loss. The stone itself is roughly 1.75 metres high and just over half a metre wide at the base, and it stands within the remains of the ecclesiastical site known as Templemanaghan, or Teampall Mhanacháin, also called Teampall Geal, overlooking Dingle Harbour and the Milltown valley.

Tradition holds that this is the grave marker of St. Manchan, and the site's name appears to preserve that association. The stone is not only inscribed but carved: the east face bears a plain equal-armed cross, while the west face carries a roughly equal-armed cross with an expanded terminal on its upper arm, a detail suggesting it was worked with some care and intention. On the north angle there is a notch that may once have been a circular perforation, though whether that was always its purpose is now unclear. The scholar R. A. S. Macalister, writing in 1945, reported a second inscription in half-uncial script alongside the ogham, which he read as FECT QUENILOC; subsequent examination has found no trace of it at all, leaving open the question of whether it was ever really there, or whether it has since been lost to weathering or damage. The ogham inscription itself has since been recorded in three-dimensional digital form as part of the Ogham in 3D project carried out by the School of Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.