Slender and square in section, measuring just 30 centimetres by 25 centimetres across, it was less a monolith in the dramatic sense and more a precise, deliberate finger of stone planted in open farmland. By November 2001, local information confirmed that it had fallen, which gives the site a quietly melancholy quality: a prehistoric marker, probably erected during the Bronze Age when such standing stones were raised across Ireland for purposes that remain genuinely uncertain, now lying in the grass of a working field.

Standing stones of this kind are among the most common yet least understood prehistoric monuments in Ireland. They appear singly across the landscape, occasionally aligned with other features or forming part of stone rows and circles, but just as often standing alone with no obvious relationship to anything nearby. What sets the Coolcraheen example apart is its particular combination of characteristics: the square profile, the relatively modest girth set against a respectable height, and the southward sea view it once commanded. Whether that orientation was incidental or intentional is the sort of question that tends to stay open.