It is irregular in plan, meaning its shape resists the neat geometry one might associate with a deliberately placed monument, and yet deliberately placed it almost certainly was. Its long axis runs NNE to SSW, a directional alignment that may or may not be meaningful, though standing stones across Ireland frequently reflect astronomical or landscape orientations that archaeologists continue to debate. It sits on a north-north-east-facing slope, an aspect that would have been visible from some distance and perhaps chosen for precisely that reason.

What makes this stone's history particularly elusive is its absence from the first edition Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1842, a remarkably thorough document that recorded field monuments across Ireland with considerable diligence. Its omission does not mean the stone was not there; surveyors missed things, and stones in rough pasture could be overlooked or considered unremarkable at the time. The stone itself, measuring 1.97 metres in height and 1.4 metres by 0.46 metres at its base, is substantial enough that it could plausibly be prehistoric in origin. Standing stones as a class of monument span a broad period, from the Neolithic through to the Bronze Age, and in Cork they often appear in isolation, their original purpose, whether boundary marker, ritual focus, or memorial, rarely recoverable from the landscape alone.