It is rough, unadorned in any elaborate sense, and easy to overlook entirely. What it is, precisely, is a freestanding cross cut from the local stone, the kind of marker that early Christian communities in Ireland placed to define sacred ground, mark burial areas, or simply anchor a point of prayer in a landscape otherwise legible only to those who knew it well.

The cross was recorded by Patrick Healy in 1972 as part of a supplementary survey of ancient monuments at Glendalough, carried out for the Office of Public Works. Healy noted its material, mica-schist, a metamorphic rock common to the Wicklow Mountains, its dimensions of 1.14 metres by 0.36 metres, and its character as small and rough, the latter word suggesting it was never intended to be a piece of fine ecclesiastical carving but rather a practical, durable marker. Its placement relative to the church chancel is precisely recorded, which tells us something about how carefully even modest monuments were treated in that survey. The church it accompanies, catalogued separately, is one of several ecclesiastical remains spread across the Glendalough complex, a monastic site traditionally associated with the sixth-century saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise's contemporary, Kevin of Glendalough.