A leacht is a low cairn or platform of stones associated with early Christian devotional practice, often used as a focus for prayer or penitential ritual at monastic sites. The combination of the upright pillar and the leacht beneath it suggests this was a deliberate focal point, a place where some form of structured religious observance took place, rather than simply a boundary marker or an accidental survival.

The stone itself is relatively compact, measuring 0.7 metres east to west and 0.45 metres north to south at its base, and the purple colouring comes from the local sandstone geology that characterises much of the Iveragh Peninsula in south Kerry. Church Island sits within a wider landscape of early medieval ecclesiastical remains, and the pillar has been documented in the archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula compiled by Aidan O'Sullivan and John Sheehan, published by Cork University Press in 1996. That survey drew together a detailed record of the peninsula's archaeological heritage, and this stone, modest in scale but precise in its placement, was recorded as part of that effort.