It is known to exist, its approximate position recorded, and yet its dimensions, decoration, and inscription, if it has one, remain undescribed. The pews simply sit on top of it.

Holycross Abbey in County Tipperary is a Cistercian foundation with origins in the twelfth century, and its chancel, like those of many medieval churches that passed into continued liturgical use, accumulated layers of subsequent burial and commemoration over the centuries. A slab from the 1600s would represent a period when the abbey's fate was bound up in the turbulence of plantation and religious upheaval. The slab's position off-centre to the south suggests it marks a specific burial rather than a generic floor covering, but whatever carvings or lettering might identify that person remain, for now, a matter of conjecture. The furniture of a working congregation has, in effect, become the lid of an unsolved question.