The sculpture belongs to a group of similar ancient stone idols found on or near Cathedral Hill in Armagh, which were likely hidden sometime after the 12th AD century to avoid plunder during the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland.

[6] According to the American archaeologist and art historian Arthur Kingsley Porter, his head "rises sharply in the back" and resembles "a veil drawn over a comb.

[6] His facial features are grotesque; he has thick lips on a wide and open mouth[9] that gapes in a vulgar manner reminiscent of the Early Medieval sheela na gig style.

[12][13] In the early 1940s, the curator of the Armagh County Museum, with the help and financial backing of Archbishop John Gregg, acquired many of the locally held stone heads and artefacts for the cathedral.

[16][17][18] The archaeologist Etienne Rynne says most surviving prehistoric Irish stone heads are of pagan Celtic origin, and date from the first to the fifth century AD.

"[12] Like the 1st century AD Corleck Head, the Tandragee Idol, along with the other figures of the Cathedral Hill group, may have been produced for a pagan shrine or cult worship site.

He likened it to the 1st century AD low relief head of the ancient Celtic god Cernunnos on the Pillar of the Boatmen, in the Musée national du Moyen Âge in Paris.

[21] Although Cernunnos was venerated mostly in the north-eastern region of Gaul (roughly present-day France, Belgium and Luxembourg) and does not appear in Irish literary sources, Porter speculated that because horned gods are extremely rare in early Celtic iconography, the Tandragee Idol may show influence from Gaulish sculpture and tradition.

[21] Porter goes on to observe that other horned figures appear in Irish mythology, including in the story of Conall Cernach, the foster brother of the Ulster warrior and demigod Cú Chulainn.

[7] Art historians and folklorists such as Helen Lanigan Wood and Ellen Etlinger associate the idol with Nuadha of the Silver Arm, the mythical chieftain of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

[24] Archaeologist Patrick Gleeson cautioned against viewing Celtic Early Iron Age artifacts such as the Tandragee Idol through a purely pan-Celtic lens.