At 1.6 metres tall and roughly 75 centimetres wide by 34 centimetres deep, it is a substantial slab, the kind of upright stone that would once have commanded open ground, perhaps marking a boundary, a burial, or a route across the landscape. Instead, it has become, quite literally, a garden feature.

Standing stones are among the most common and least understood prehistoric monuments in Ireland. Erected anywhere from the Neolithic period through to the early Bronze Age, they resist easy interpretation; some are associated with burials, others appear to have had astronomical or territorial functions, and many remain entirely unexplained. What is clear about this particular example is its physical presence. A stone of these dimensions would have required considerable effort to erect and was almost certainly intended to be seen. Its current address, bedded into a domestic garden in a West Cork townland, is a quiet illustration of how the Irish countryside has absorbed its ancient monuments over the centuries, sometimes into fields, sometimes into walls, and occasionally, as here, into the ornamental landscaping of a private home.