That they survive at all is something of an accident, and the inscription one of them carries, carved in ogham script perhaps fifteen centuries ago, very nearly disappeared into a field wall or a ditch in County Kilkenny without anyone ever reading it.

Ogham is an early medieval Irish script in which letters are represented by groups of notches and lines cut along the edge or face of a stone, typically read from the bottom upwards. The two stones in question came from Dunbell Big, County Kilkenny, where, according to R.A.S. Macalister writing in 1945, a farmer in the 1850s set about demolishing a group of ringforts on his land. Ringforts, roughly circular enclosures defined by earthen banks or stone walls, were a common form of early medieval settlement across Ireland, and their remains survive in great numbers across the countryside. During the clearance work, the farmer uncovered the two ogham stones and broke them up to shift them more easily. The fragments were later recovered, and both stones are now catalogued in the National Museum. The larger of the two measured six feet three inches by one foot one inch by eleven inches and was inscribed along one of its angles. Macalister read the inscription as BRIAN[I]TTAS M[A]QI DUCR[A]DDA, a formula typical of ogham stones, recording a personal name followed by the word for "son of" and a father's name, in this case suggesting something like "Brianittas, son of Ducradda."

The stone is held in the National Museum of Ireland at its Collins Barracks or Kildare Street site in Dublin; visitors should check current display arrangements with the museum directly, as not all collection items are on permanent public display. The inscription, running along the arris of the stone, rewards a close look, since ogham can be difficult to read without knowing what you are looking for. The notches are cut at or across the edge of the stone rather than on its flat face, so it helps to crouch down and sight along the angle. The companion stone from the same Dunbell find is catalogued separately within the same collection.