It stands 1.45 metres tall, roughly a metre wide and less than thirty centimetres thick, with a subrectangular shape and its long axis oriented north-north-east to south-south-west. That orientation is unlikely to be accidental. Many Irish standing stones, set upright during the Bronze Age or earlier, appear to have been positioned with deliberate regard to landscape, astronomy, or boundaries, though precisely what any individual stone was meant to mark or commemorate is rarely recoverable.

The stone's modest proportions place it at the smaller end of the standing stone spectrum. Some examples in County Cork reach several metres in height and draw considerable attention; this one is quieter, a presence in the grass rather than a monument on the horizon. The placename Gortdonaghmore, from the Irish meaning something close to "the big field of the church land", hints at a landscape with layers of use stretching across different periods, though the stone itself predates any ecclesiastical associations by a very long margin.