At 1.58 metres tall, it is not a particularly imposing example of its kind, but it has an oddly specific character: roughly trapezoidal in cross-section, its south-east face bulges outward at mid-height, and its top flattens before rising to a point at the north. Packing stones, placed deliberately at the base on the north-west side, suggest that whoever erected it went to some trouble to keep it upright. They only partially succeeded.

Standing stones, a broad category of prehistoric monument found across Ireland, were set up as solitary uprights at various points from the Neolithic through to the early medieval period. Their original purposes remain largely unclear, ranging from territorial markers to ritual focal points, burial indicators, or route guides across open ground. The Ballymalone stone is oriented with its long axis running east to west, a detail that may or may not be meaningful. What is curious about its documentary history is that it appears on the Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, produced in the late nineteenth century, but is absent from both the 1840 and 1920 editions of the six-inch maps. Whether it was simply overlooked by earlier surveyors, or temporarily obscured or buried, is not known. The stone was formally reported to the National Monuments Service by Rieks Zevering in January 2018, which suggests it remained effectively off the official record until very recently, sitting quietly in its marshy field while forestry gradually closed in around it on three sides.