It is one of three carved stones, and what makes its situation quietly odd is precisely that displacement: rock art of this kind is almost always encountered in the landscape where it was created, yet this example has ended up in an urban county far from the Meath hillside where it once formed part of a ringfort.

The stone came to light when a ringfort at Ballinvalley, County Meath was removed, an event recorded in the archaeological record under the site reference ME009-063. A ringfort, to give the term its simplest explanation, is a circular enclosure defined by earthen banks or stone walls, used throughout the early medieval period in Ireland as a farmstead or dwelling. When the Ballinvalley example was cleared away, three decorated stones were found within or associated with it. The discovery was noted by the archaeologist Elizabeth Shee-Twohig, whose 2001 survey of Irish rock art provides the primary record for the find. The details were compiled by Geraldine Stout and uploaded to the Irish archaeological record in May 2012. Rock art in Ireland typically consists of incised or pecked motifs, most commonly cup marks and cup-and-ring marks, carved into stone surfaces during the Neolithic or Bronze Age. Finding such stones reused within a later ringfort is not unprecedented, but it does suggest the stones had already been old, and perhaps already considered significant, by the time the enclosure was built around them.

Because the current location within Dublin South City is not specified in the available record, pinning down exactly where this stone can be seen today is not straightforward. It may be held in a museum collection or stored in an institutional setting rather than displayed publicly. Anyone hoping to track it down would do well to consult the National Monuments Service record or contact a relevant repository directly before making any effort to visit. The other two stones from the same Ballinvalley discovery would make for a useful line of enquiry too, since their locations might help trace the full dispersal of the group.