Ogham, developed in Ireland during the early medieval period, encodes language through a series of notches and lines cut along the ridge or face of a stone, most often recording personal names. This particular fragment measures just over 25 centimetres wide and 11 centimetres thick, with two smooth faces meeting at a well-defined obtuse angle. Most of its inscription has been lost to time or breakage, and what survives is confined to one end of the stone: three strokes that continue across the angle, and four parallel lines that run only as far as the angle before stopping. It is, in other words, a puzzle with most of its pieces missing.

The stone is thought to have originated at Moone Abbey in County Kildare, an early medieval monastery reputedly founded by St Colmcille in the sixth century. It was most likely uncovered during archaeological excavations at the site carried out by Miriam Clyne between 1998 and 1999, under excavation licence number 98E0276. Those excavations, funded by Dúchas The Heritage Service, took place in two seasons, the first running from 22 June to 7 August 1998, with a second ten-week season the following year. The work was undertaken in advance of conservation at the site, and it confirmed that the eastern end of the church at Moone Abbey is early medieval in character, probably dating to the tenth or eleventh centuries. How or when an ogham stone came to be associated with this site is not recorded, though the reuse and redeposition of such stones within monastic contexts is well attested in early medieval Ireland. The fragment is now catalogued in the OPW's Kilkenny depot under stone carving number KD034.