Most prehistoric standing stones carry at least a rough provenance, a field they have occupied for millennia, a townland tradition linking them to a specific spot. The one at Ballynaboola in North Cork has none of that. It was dislodged during forestry operations and its original location is simply not known. What survives is the stone itself, a substantial upright block measuring 2.4 metres in height and roughly 1.2 metres by 0.65 metres at its base, re-erected in 1978 immediately north of a pair of reconstructed short cists.

A short cist, for context, is a small stone-lined burial box, typically dating to the Bronze Age, large enough to contain a crouched inhumation or a cremation deposit. The cists at Ballynaboola were themselves reconstructed, suggesting the site had already been disturbed before the standing stone was brought here. The pairing of a re-erected standing stone with rebuilt burial chambers produces something archaeologically candid: a landscape feature assembled from displaced pieces rather than preserved in place. The stone was recorded in the Archaeological Inventory of County Cork, Volume 4, published in 2000, which notes the 1978 re-erection and acknowledges the unknown provenance with unusual directness for an official record. There is no attempt to assign the stone a position it cannot be proven to have held.