A stoup is a vessel for holy water, typically placed at a church entrance so worshippers can bless themselves on the way in, and this one measures just under half a metre across and 37 centimetres high. What makes it unusual is the carving: four ram's heads, equally spaced around the rim, each with vineleaves trailing from their horns, rendered in high relief. Below a horizontal band encircling the lower body, an unbroken row of fleur-de-lys runs all the way around. It is a dense, confident piece of stonework for an object whose function is essentially utilitarian.

The stoup is thought to date to the 17th century, which places it in a complicated period for Franciscan communities in Ireland. By that point, friaries had been suppressed under Tudor policy, and many communities were operating under considerable legal and physical pressure, moving between locations or sheltering in reduced circumstances. That a piece of sculpted liturgical furniture as carefully worked as this one was produced at all during that era is quietly remarkable. The imagery chosen is worth a moment's attention: rams appear in Christian iconography as symbols of sacrifice and spiritual leadership, while the vine is a longstanding emblem of the Eucharist. The fleur-de-lys, a stylised lily form, carried associations with the Virgin Mary as well as with heraldic and decorative traditions across medieval and early modern Europe. Whether the programme of imagery was theologically deliberate or simply reflected the carver's available vocabulary is difficult to say now, but the combination gives the piece an unusually layered quality for something of its scale.