It measures 1.8 metres in height, with a base roughly 2.25 metres by 1.15 metres, and its long axis runs north-east to south-west, a orientation that might suggest deliberate placement by prehistoric people who often aligned standing stones with solar or lunar events. But there is a complicating possibility: the stone may be an erratic.

An erratic is a boulder transported far from its origin by glacial movement and deposited, sometimes conspicuously, when the ice retreated. Ireland has many of them, and their tendency to sit alone in fields, upright and seemingly purposeful, has led to more than a few being recorded as standing stones before closer scrutiny raised doubts. At Maulikeeve, that doubt has been noted but not resolved. The stone is large enough and prominent enough to have attracted attention, yet the geological question means it cannot be confidently assigned to the same tradition as the many deliberately erected Bronze Age monoliths found across Cork and the wider south-west.