A third was simply left loose in the graveyard. That three early stone crosses could end up like this, incorporated into rubble or left to sit among headstones, says something about how common such fragments once were in a place as historically layered as Ferns.

The crosses have since been re-erected to the west, northwest, and north of the Cathedral, though their bases may well have occupied those same positions all along, suggesting the heads were the pieces that moved rather than the monuments as a whole. They are ringed crosses, a form in which a circle connects the arms, and their decoration is restrained: plain surfaces with mouldings along the edges rather than the elaborate scriptural carving seen on the more celebrated high crosses elsewhere in Ireland. The northernmost of the three is notably narrower than its companions, measuring 1.53 metres wide and 1.4 metres tall with a thickness of 0.23 metres. All three are of granite, a material that weathers slowly, which may partly explain their survival in recognisable form despite the indignity of being used as building fill.