It is an ogham stone, one of the upright inscribed slabs that served as memorials and markers in early medieval Ireland, with notches and strokes cut along the edges to record names in the ogham alphabet. This particular example measures about 1.5 metres tall, and what makes it immediately odd is the small oval quartzite boulder, roughly the size of a large fist, now cemented to its top. That cemented cap is a replacement of sorts, a fixed echo of something far stranger.

The stone was once known as St. Olan's stone, and it had a moveable semi-globular cap called the Coppeen Olan, which was treated as a relic in its own right. Writing in 1879, R.R. Brash recorded that the stone had been held in great veneration by local people. It was reportedly an unfailing talisman in childbirth and was sought after in other cases of female illness. Pilgrims paid rounds at it on the feast day of St. Olan, 5th September, alongside a second St. Olan's stone and St. Olan's well nearby. The ogham inscription itself, read by R.A.S. Macalister in 1945, runs along the north-east angle and reads ANM CORRE MAQVI UDD [...] METT, though the middle section is much worn. ANM is an Old Irish word meaning "name of", a formula found on several Irish ogham stones, suggesting the inscription commemorates a person named Corre, son of someone whose name is now lost to the abrasion of centuries. What began as a memorial stone for an individual was, at some point, drawn into the orbit of a local saint's cult, acquiring a new identity, a removable cap, and a set of very specific healing properties. The cemented boulder sitting on top of it today is a quiet acknowledgement that the original Coppeen Olan is long gone.