The stone at Caherbarnagh sits out in open bogland in mid Cork, leaning heavily to the north-east as though bracing against the prevailing wind, and commands an unobstructed view in every direction. That combination, a prominent position with long sightlines, is fairly typical of prehistoric standing stones, which were almost certainly placed with intention, whether as territorial markers, ritual waypoints, or aids to navigation across landscapes that would have looked very different several thousand years ago.

The stone itself is modest in scale but not negligible. It stands 1.4 metres high, measures roughly half a metre by just under a metre across, and is subrectangular in plan, meaning its cross-section is broadly rectangular rather than tapering to a point or staying naturally rounded. It is oriented along a north-east to south-west axis, a alignment seen at many standing stones across Munster, though whether this reflects astronomical intent, the local topography, or simply the lie of the original rock face is impossible to say with certainty. What is curious is its total absence from the 1842 and 1904 Ordnance Survey six-inch maps. Those surveys were meticulous enough to record field boundaries, individual cabins, and the smallest stream crossings, so a stone standing in open bogland ought to have caught a surveyor's eye. Whether it was genuinely missed, considered too unremarkable to note, or was simply difficult to reach across wet ground on both occasions, is now an open question.