It rises 2.1 metres, tapers to a point, and leans very slightly to the west, as though it has been thinking of leaving for some considerable time. Its base measures 2.1 metres by 0.8 metres, giving it a presence that is more substantial than a casual glance might suggest, and it is oriented along a north-south axis, a alignment that may or may not have been deliberate but that was common enough among prehistoric standing stones to make the question worth asking.

Standing stones of this kind are among the most enigmatic survivals in the Irish landscape. Erected most commonly during the Bronze Age, though some may be earlier or later, they served purposes that are now largely lost: boundary markers, ritual focal points, commemorations of the dead, or astronomical sightlines are among the explanations that have been proposed, and none has been conclusively proved for any given stone. What can be said of this one is that its position, on a hillside commanding a long view down to the Blackwater, is the sort of place that people in any era have tended to mark. The valley below was one of the great corridors of movement through Munster, and the Nagle Mountains form a natural ridge separating it from the land to the north. The stone sits at that boundary in more than one sense.