What makes this particular example unusual is not just its age but its location: the ogham inscription is cut along the edge of a lintel, a stone used as a horizontal beam, meaning the script was carved onto a structural element of an underground passage rather than a freestanding pillar.

Ogham is an early medieval script, typically dating from the fourth to the seventh century, composed of strokes and notches cut along the edge of a stone. It was used primarily to record personal names, often in commemorative or territorial contexts. The Lackabane stone came to light in the early 1980s during the survey of a nearby souterrain, an artificially constructed underground passage or chamber, typically associated with early medieval settlement sites and used for storage or refuge. Four letters were identified on the lintel, though their reading remains uncertain: scholars recorded them as either QUTQ or NUVN, a discrepancy that hints at how worn or ambiguous the strokes had become. The reading was communicated by J.P. McCarthy, and the site was subsequently documented in a 1997 corpus of Cork ogham stones. Once the survey was complete, the souterrain was closed again, and the ogham stone was left in position inside it, which is where it remains today.