Most prehistoric monoliths occupy fields, hilltops, or moorland, where they can project a suitably ancient atmosphere. This one at Lisheen, in County Cork, stands in the middle of an everyday agricultural space, surrounded by the ordinary business of a farm, yet commanding a good view in every direction. That panoramic quality is not accidental. Whoever raised it chose the spot deliberately, and the surrounding farmstead has simply grown up around it over the intervening millennia.

The stone itself is sub-rectangular in shape, standing 1.35 metres tall and measuring 1.22 metres by 0.64 metres at its base, and it is aligned on a northeast to southwest axis. That orientation is a recurring feature among standing stones across Ireland and Atlantic Europe, and while no single explanation commands universal agreement, alignments toward solar or lunar events on the horizon have long been proposed. Standing stones, raised as single upright blocks of unworked or lightly shaped stone, belong to a broad tradition stretching back into the Bronze Age, though pinning an exact date to any individual example without excavation is rarely possible. What can be said is that the Lisheen stone was considered significant enough to erect, and has been considered significant enough, at every point since, not to remove.