The panel originally belonged to a wall memorial commissioned by Dulamus Barry in 1633 and was located in Owney Abbey, a monastic site some distance from where it now stands. That it survives at all is remarkable; that it survives in quite this context is stranger still.

Owney Abbey, where the Barry memorial once stood, was the kind of place that accumulated the devotional objects of local Catholic families during the medieval and early modern periods. Wall memorials of this type were common among landed families: carved panels, often featuring religious scenes, set into church or abbey walls as a permanent mark of status and piety. The Barry panel, measuring 1.6 metres long and 0.9 metres high, depicts a crucifixion and was one side panel of what would have been a larger composite monument. At some point it was removed from Owney Abbey and found its way to Cappercullen Glen in the townland of Garranbane. There it was incorporated by the Belgian monks of Glenstal Abbey into the east sidewall of a small stone shelter they constructed over a mass-rock. A mass-rock is exactly what it sounds like: a flat stone used as an improvised altar during the Penal era, when Catholic worship was suppressed and priests celebrated Mass outdoors and in secret, often in remote or concealed locations. The monks built the shelter to protect the rock, and the Barry panel, presumably already on site or nearby, was worked into the structure.

The site sits in woodland in Cappercullen Glen, beside a stream that marks the boundary between the townlands of Garranbane and Boarmanshill. Cappercullen Castle lies roughly 465 metres to the southwest, which gives some sense of the landscape this monument now occupies. Because it is sheltered by trees and set beside a boundary stream, the approach can be damp underfoot, and the woodland canopy means light is variable. The panel itself is set into the wall of the shelter rather than displayed in any conventional way, so it rewards a close look; the crucifixion carving is a 1633 piece of funerary stonework pressed into service as building material four centuries after it was made.