The scroll beneath the shield reads SANNID A BOWE, a war-cry calling for victory to Shannid Castle, the ancient FitzGerald stronghold in County Limerick. For a monument measuring just 0.6 metres high and 0.82 metres wide, it carries considerable weight.

The plaque is a densely composed piece of heraldic carving. The shield bears a saltire, with three ermine tails in the upper and right-hand portions of the field and six in each of the others. Ermine tails are the stylised fur markings familiar from medieval heraldry, here used to divide the field into areas of different charge. Above the shield, a boar passant, that is, a boar shown walking in profile, sits atop a heavy wreath and a closed helmet, with mantling, the decorative cloth-like drapery flowing from a helmet in heraldic display, rendered in four main masses on either side. The supporters flanking the shield are winged lions, though scholars believe these were most likely intended as griffins, a distinction that suggests the carver was working from instruction or convention rather than strict heraldic accuracy. The monument sits immediately south of the Dunboyne monument in the same transept, placing it within a cluster of commemorative stonework that reflects the abbey's long association with the local Anglo-Norman and Hiberno-Norman nobility. The FitzGerald connection is made explicit by the motto itself: Shannid Castle, in north County Limerick, was a principal seat of the Geraldines, and the cry Shannid abú was their traditional rallying call, recorded in variant spellings across centuries of Irish history.