It was quarried, propped up on support stones so a carver could work it, and then, for reasons that remain unclear, simply left. The inscription it carries reads: 'Here lies the body of Cornelius O'Brien who departed this life 1735 Erected by his son Murthogh O'Brien.' Above those words sit the letters IHS, a longstanding Christogram derived from the Greek name for Jesus, with a cross rising from the bar of the H, and two raised forearms bearing swords, one carved on each side. It is a finished piece of memorial work, or close to it, abandoned in a field rather than placed over a grave.

The leading theory is that this slab was cut and carved for use at Glencolumkille, a short distance away, where a Turlogh O'Brien who died in the same year, 1735, is recorded as buried beneath a plain, unmarked ledger slab. The coincidence of the date and the surname is difficult to ignore. Whether Cornelius and Turlogh were related, or whether some confusion or dispute over the commission led to the slab being left behind, is not known. What is certain is that the quarry site was productive: similar slabs, though without any visible inscriptions, were cut from the rock at several points nearby, at distances ranging from 40 metres to 500 metres from this one. The limestone here is 2.05 metres long, 0.76 metres wide, and 0.12 metres thick, substantial enough to have required real effort to extract and prepare. The inscription is no longer easily legible, worn and weathered to the point where it yields its text reluctantly, if at all, under anything but ideal conditions.