That simple fact carries a surprising amount of weight. The tomb in question, belonging to Colonel John Talbot of Belgard, was originally positioned at the foot of the high altar inside the church itself, a place of considerable honour. When the church changed hands from Catholic to Protestant use, the tomb was displaced from that prime position, ending up outside, sunk into the ground near the entrance gate as a flat, fractured slab. It is the kind of quiet demotion that speaks volumes about how religious and political change in Ireland worked itself out in very practical, very physical ways.

The account comes from two sources that together paint a fairly detailed picture. Eugene O'Curry, writing in 1837, recorded the circumstances of the tomb's removal and the transfer of the church. Later, FitzGerald, writing between 1906 and 1908, added the observation that the central passage of the old church had once been flagged with large tombstones, several of which, by his time, had already migrated to somewhere near the churchyard gateway. He also noted that the Talbot slab could still be found near the entrance, accompanied by the armorial bearings of the Talbot family and their family motto. Colonel John Talbot was associated with Belgard, a name still attached to the wider area, and the tomb is one of several 17th-century monuments recorded within the churchyard, catalogued under the reference DU021-037004-.

The churchyard is in Tallaght, now thoroughly absorbed into the southern suburbs of Dublin, which makes the survival of any 17th-century fabric here quietly remarkable. Visitors looking for the Talbot slab should concentrate their attention near the entrance gate, though the description of it as fractured and sunk into the ground suggests it requires some patience to locate and read. The armorial carvings, if still legible, are worth examining closely; heraldic detail on funerary slabs of this period often includes symbols specific to the family's lineage and history. The churchyard contains other tombs of similar age, so the site rewards a slow circuit rather than a quick glance.