At 1.22 metres by 0.65 metres, the monument is not especially large, but the ambition of its Latin inscription, cut in Roman capitals and running at considerable length, is quite something. It sits close to an armorial stone belonging to the same family, the Hurleys, near the western end of the Catholic church, and together the two pieces suggest a clan that was determined to leave its mark in stone as well as in local memory.

The inscription was commissioned in 1632 by Maurice Hurley, described as an esquire, who erected it for himself, his two wives, Graina Hogan and Grace Thornton, and his wider posterity. A translation published by Davis White in 1892 gives a sense of the text's register: Hurley is praised as "the pillar of hospitality," "suppressor of all strife," "a jewel amongst men," and the glory of his ancient stock. The Latin phrase "religionis ebur," rendered literally as "the ivory statue of religion," gives a flavour of the inscription's more ornate turns of phrase. At the foot of the main text, a second inscription names the makers: Patricius Kearing and Nicolaus Cowley, who fabricated the monument at Hurley's expense. That the craftsmen are named at all is a small historical gift, a rare moment where the makers of such an object step briefly into the record alongside the man who paid for it. The inscription was transcribed by Shirley in the 1860s, suggesting the stone was legible and reasonably well preserved even then.