It is the kind of detail that raises questions a passing glance would never prompt, and those questions do not have easy answers.

The cross was found within the grounds of the churchyard at Tonlegee, in the old barony of Coolock in County Dublin, and was recorded in the Sites and Monuments Record under the reference DU015-076001. It is made from plain granite, undecorated and without inscription, which makes precise dating difficult. Its recorded width is 1.35 metres, though its height, now measuring 0.95 metres, is noted as damaged, suggesting it was once taller. The thickness is recorded at 0.5 metres. The asymmetry of the arms is not a stylistic flourish but simply a fact of the object as it survives, and whether that imbalance is the result of damage, original cutting, or something else entirely is not clear from the available record. The site was compiled by archaeologist Geraldine Stout and uploaded to the record in August 2011.

Tonlegee sits in what is now a built-up part of north Dublin, and the churchyard itself is not a destination that announces itself. The cross does not dominate its surroundings. Visitors interested in early ecclesiastical stonework in the Dublin area will find it modest by any measure, but that modesty is part of what makes it worth a closer look. There are no carvings to interpret, no knotwork to photograph; the interest lies in the object's plainness and its slightly off-balance form, sitting in a churchyard whose own history extends well beyond what the built landscape around it might suggest.