Look at the east side and you see something close to a standard Latin cross, with defined arm terminals. Turn to face the west side and the arms are thicker, blunter, without those differentiated ends. It is a small difference, easily missed, but it gives the stone an odd double identity, as though two carvers each left their version on opposite sides of the same object.

The cross is traditionally associated with St. Ailbe, the early Christian bishop credited with bringing Christianity to Munster before the arrival of St. Patrick, and whose principal seat was at Emly. The town was once one of the most significant ecclesiastical centres in Ireland, and Ailbe its founding figure. The cross is described as an imperforate ringed cross, meaning the ring connecting the arms is solid rather than pierced through, as is common on the great high crosses of the midlands and west. It is cut from sandstone, stands 1.48 metres high, and has a tapering shaft that widens toward the base. The side arms are notably short, projecting only three centimetres from the shaft, which gives the head an almost compressed appearance. The head itself is 0.57 metres wide, considerably broader in proportion to those minimal projecting arms. Peter Harbison, writing in 1992, noted these details in his survey of Irish high crosses, where the piece is catalogued alongside far more celebrated examples.