What makes this one quietly stranger is that it was not always alone. The Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1842 marks two stones at this location, yet only one remains. The surviving stone is rectangular in section and oriented on a northeast to southwest axis, measuring just over a metre wide and half a metre deep at its base. It looks out over the sea to the south, a position that may be coincidental or may have been entirely deliberate, depending on how much intention you are prepared to read into prehistoric placement.

Standing stones of this kind are common across the Irish landscape but rarely well understood. They date, in most cases, to the Bronze Age, though precise dating is difficult without associated finds or excavation. Their purposes have been debated for well over a century: boundary markers, ritual monuments, memorials, waypoints. The northeast to southwest alignment of the Kealties stone is worth noting, as some standing stones across Ireland appear to have been positioned with astronomical or seasonal sight lines in mind, though no such specific claim has been established for this one. The disappearance of the second stone, recorded as recently as the mid-nineteenth century, is a reminder of how much of this kind of archaeology has been quietly lost to land clearance, road building, and the repurposing of large stones as gateposts or building material.