It is not enormous, measuring 1.85 metres in height and tapering from a base width of just under a metre to a narrow 0.25 metres at the top, giving it a distinctly triangular cross-section. That taper is part of what makes it visually arresting; it is a shaped, purposeful object rather than simply a boulder left by chance.

Standing stones of this kind are among the most enigmatic monuments in the Irish landscape. Erected during prehistory, most likely in the Bronze Age, their precise function remains genuinely uncertain. Some are thought to mark boundaries, territorial or ceremonial. Others may have served as waymarkers along routes through difficult terrain, and the position of this particular stone, overlooking the pass between Johnstown Hill and Slievecorragh, makes that reading especially plausible. A pass is exactly the kind of place that travellers needed to navigate, and a tall granite marker visible from a distance would have been genuinely useful. The wide views it commands stretch out into County Kildare, meaning the stone sits at a natural threshold between two landscapes, the upland granite country of Wicklow giving way to the flatter midlands beyond.