Armorial plaques of this kind were a common feature of the grander domestic architecture of early modern Ireland, carved to announce the lineage and status of whoever had commissioned the structure, and typically set into a prominent wall near a principal entrance or fireplace. This one, however, no longer occupies its original position.

The plaque is believed to have originated at Meldrum Castle, a fortified house dating from the early seventeenth century that stands roughly 400 metres to the east of where the plaque is now kept. Fortified houses of this period occupied an architectural middle ground, combining the defensive features of an earlier castle tradition with the more domestic ambitions of a manor house, and they are relatively common across Munster. The castle at Meldrum is documented in Robert Simington's 1931 survey of Tipperary landholding, which places it within that early seventeenth-century tradition. At some point, the plaque made its way from the castle to Meldrum House, though the circumstances of that move are not recorded. Whether it was carried across during a period of rebuilding, salvaged from a structure falling into ruin, or simply relocated for safekeeping, the short distance between the two buildings gives the object an odd, unresolved quality, close to home but no longer quite in place.