The group consists of one free-standing high cross with two smaller, attendant pillars; a free-standing pillar known as the "Marigold Stone"; and a decorated door lintel.
The pieces apart from the lintel are thought, on the basis of their stylistic similarity, to be roughly contemporaneous.
[1]: 167–169 French scholar Françoise Henry (who dated the stone to the 7th century) made the Carndonagh high cross famous by citing it prominently in her theory of the origin of Insular high crosses.
[2]: 128 This theory gained few supporters, with later archaeological evidence substantially refuting it.
[1]: 169 Scottish archaeologist Robert B. K. Stevenson sharply criticised her interpretation of the Carndonagh stones.