The standing stone at Kilvealaton in north County Cork does something rather different. Low and broad, measuring just 0.85 metres in height but spanning 1.8 metres in length, it lies closer to the ground than most people's kitchen countertops, tapering along its upper edge to a narrow ridge. It sits in level pasture, unhurried and horizontal, oriented along an east-west axis in a way that may or may not be deliberate, though alignment with sunrise or sunset is a recurring feature of prehistoric monuments across Ireland.

Standing stones, which are simply single upright or recumbent stones set into the ground by human effort, appear throughout Ireland in enormous variety. They served many possible purposes, none of which archaeologists have settled definitively: territorial markers, burial indicators, astronomical alignment points, or ritual focal points are all possibilities that have been argued at different times. This particular example, recorded in the Archaeological Inventory of County Cork, belongs to a county unusually dense with such monuments. Its low, recumbent form and considerable width relative to its height give it a character distinct from the tall pillar stones more commonly associated with the type, and suggest it may have been intended to be seen across rather than upward, a feature of the landscape rather than a punctuation mark above it.