Nearly two metres long and tapering from head to foot, it carries an inscription in Black Letter script, the dense Gothic lettering common to formal medieval documents, running along all four sides of the slab. The text names the dead, records their titles, and gives a date of death. That date, however, has presented scholars with a problem ever since anyone tried to read it carefully.

The slab commemorates James Purcell, described in the Latin inscription as baron of Corkatenny, Lisbothy, and Ballyocormuck, and lord of Chripurselluc, alongside his wife Ellen Butler. The Roman numeral date in the inscription has been rendered in translation as 1050, which is clearly impossible given that the Cistercian abbey at Holycross was not founded until the twelfth century, and the style of both the lettering and the carved decoration belongs firmly to the later medieval period. The most plausible reading of the damaged numeral is 1505, which would place the burial at the very end of the medieval period and align with the slab's catalogued range of 1200 to 1600. The surface decoration supports this: the central feature is a seven-armed segmental cross, with each arm ending in a fleur-de-lis, and the shaft is articulated with cross-bands at the head and base, rising from a pillar-base form. It is a confident, accomplished piece of stone carving, and the Purcell and Butler names together reflect the web of Anglo-Norman and Hiberno-Norman families whose power in Tipperary was still very much intact at that time. Two cracks are visible across the surface, but the slab is otherwise in good condition, which is itself unusual for a piece of this age and ambition.