The stone bears two carved motifs rendered in low false relief, a technique in which the decoration sits only slightly raised from the surrounding surface, giving the imagery a restrained, almost worn quality. One motif is a heart; the other is the IHS monogram, the Christogram derived from the first three letters of the name Jesus in Greek, widely used on Catholic devotional objects and memorials from the medieval period onwards. A fragment of the slab is now missing entirely, which means part of whatever inscription or decoration once completed it has been lost.

The stone is held in the nave of St Audoen's Church on High Street, the only surviving medieval parish church in Dublin city. The memorial commemorates Nicholas Skarly, who died in 1637, a period when the old Catholic families of Dublin were navigating an increasingly fraught relationship with the established Church of Ireland, which had taken formal possession of St Audoen's during the Reformation. The presence of a Catholic-inflected memorial with an IHS symbol inside what was by then a Protestant parish church speaks to the layered and sometimes contradictory nature of religious life in the city during the early seventeenth century. The Skarly family name does not appear prominently in the wider historical record, which makes this stone one of the few traces of their existence.

St Audoen's is managed by the Office of Public Works and is open to visitors during the summer months, though hours can vary and it is worth checking in advance. The church sits just off High Street within the old walled city, near the surviving arch of the medieval city walls. Once inside, the nave is compact and the Skarly stone lies on the floor among other early grave slabs; it is worth taking a moment to look closely at the surface carving rather than simply reading the accompanying labels, since the low relief work is best appreciated from a low or raking angle where the shallow modelling catches the light.