What makes the standing stone at Oughtminnee quietly arresting is the detail that surrounds its modest presence: beneath it, packing-stones carefully placed by whoever raised it remain visible where a sheep path has worn away the earth. That small exposure is a reminder that what looks like an accidental lump of rock was once a deliberate act of construction, positioned with some care and bedded firmly into the ground.

The stone, measuring roughly 0.45 metres wide, 0.35 metres thick, and just over a metre in height, sits in rough pasture overlooking Dunlough Bay near Mizen Head at the far southwestern tip of Ireland. It is orientated on a northeast to southwest axis, a alignment pattern common to many prehistoric standing stones in Ireland, though the precise significance of such orientations remains a matter of scholarly debate. The stone leans gently to the southwest, which may simply reflect centuries of gradual movement in the boggy ground. Standing stones are among the most widespread and least understood monuments in the Irish archaeological record; most are thought to date to the Bronze Age, though without excavation any individual example is difficult to date with certainty.