The staff is made from a wooden core wrapped in copper-alloy (bronze) tubes, fixed in place by binding strips, and three barrel-shaped knops (protruding decorative metal fittings).

The crozier's decorative attachments include the crest and terminal (or "drop") on the crook, and the knops and ferrule on the staff; these components are made from silver, niello, glass and enamel.

The antiquarian and collector Henry Charles Sirr, Lord Mayor of Dublin, held the crozier until his collection was acquired by the Royal Irish Academy on his death in 1841.

The distinctive shape of Irish croziers evokes the function of shepherds' crooks in restraining wayward sheep, and according to the art historian Rachel Moss is similar to the crook-headed sticks used by cherubs to grasp vine branches in Bacchic iconography.

[4][6][7] According to the archaeologist A. T. Lucas, the croziers thus acted as "the principal vehicle of [Patrick's] power, a kind of spiritual electrode through which he conveyed the holy energy by which he wrought the innumerable miracles attributed to him".

[9][10] The Irish antiquarian George Petrie (d. 1866) was the first to write about the crozier's discovery, and based on his sources placed the find-spot as in the "Temple Ciarán", a now ruined oratory on the grounds of Clonmacnoise monastery, County Offaly.

The oratory is said to contain the tomb of the monastery's founder Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise (d. c. 549), and he is recorded as having appeared centuries after his death "to smite a would-be raider with his crozier".

[n 3][15] Clonmacnoise monastery was founded in 544 by Saint Ciarán[18] in the territory of Uí Maine where an ancient major east–west land route and early medieval political division (the Slighe Mhor) met at the River Shannon.

This strategic location helped it become a thriving centre of religion, learning, craftsmanship and trade by the 9th century, and many of the high kings of Tara (Ard Rí) and of Connacht were buried here.

[18] A significant metal workshop is known to have been in operation at Clonmacnoise in the 11th century, and the crozier contains design elements and motifs unique to contemporary objects found on or near the monastery's grounds.

[29] It was probably once 20 cm longer and had four knops, as with most other intact examples; the losses seem to result from its having been broken apart to make it easier to fold and thus hide from Viking and later Norman invaders.

[31][32][34] It was built in two phases: the early 11th-century structure was added to and refurbished in the 14th century, the later additions including the bishop and dragon in the drop-plate, and some of the ornamentation on the upper knop.

[18] De Paor describes the cleric as a generic late-period Insular figure, with "pierced eyes, small ears, a large nose, and [a] heavy mustache and beard".

[38] As the most visible portion of the crozier, the drops were the obvious focus point for figure art, an element that is, apart from zoomorphism, otherwise almost entirely absent in Insular metalwork.

[34][46] Each side of the crook is decorated with four or five silver cast zoomorphic snake-like animals in rows of tightly bound figure-eight knots and ribbon-shaped pale coloured bodies that intertwine and loop over each other.

Each contains openwork patterns and chased or repoussé (i.e. relief hammered from the back) copper-alloy plates, a feature only otherwise found on the Prosperous Crozier.

[53] The central knop is 8.8 cm (3.5 in) in height and less decorated than the other two, but has bands of open Ringerike-style interlace made of inlaid silver that form series of knotted patterns.

[50] After the lower knop the shaft passes through a free ring and tapers (narrows) into the spiked ferrule (a protective metal-cast foot, here of copper alloy) that forms the crozier's basal point.

[50] Unlike the other two Insular examples with surviving ferrules (Lismore and River Laune, both of which have more elaborate and complex endings), it is not cast into the lower knop but is a separate piece.

[54] He continued that other objects discovered in the tomb included a chalice and wine vessel which, according to Petrie "fell into ignorant hands, and were probably deemed unworthy of preservation",[55] indicating that their precious metal was melted and sold for its intrinsic value.

[58] In 1826, a lithograph representation appeared in Picturesque Views of the Antiquities of Ireland, compiled in 1830 by the architect and draughtsman Robert O'Callaghan Newenham, where it was described as having been "dug up 100 years ago".