Roughly square, measuring just under two metres on each side and less than a metre tall, it is a corner-post shrine: a type of outdoor reliquary or grave marker in which thin upright slabs form the sides and taller pillars anchor each corner. The form is rare, and this example at Caherlehillan is among the more complete survivals of the type in Ireland.

Three of the original four corner-posts remain standing. One of them is carved with a linear cross whose shaft ends in a bifid terminal, meaning the top of the shaft splits into two prongs, a detail that places it within a recognised vocabulary of early Christian stone carving. Beneath the shrine, excavation revealed that its position was not accidental. It had been deliberately laid over an earlier lintel-grave, a simple burial type in which flat stones are placed over and around the body like a stone box, and inside that grave lay a small stone cross. The deliberate layering of shrine over grave over cross suggests a carefully considered act of commemoration, perhaps marking the burial of someone whose memory the community wished to preserve in a more permanent way. Two cross-slabs stand on the west side of the structure, adding to the density of early Christian carving concentrated in this small area. The excavation was carried out as part of an undergraduate training programme run by the Department of Archaeology at University College Cork, with research published by John Sheehan across a series of reports in the early 2000s.