Measuring just 42 centimetres in length and 34 centimetres wide, it is less than half the size of a standard floor tile, yet it carries an inscription that has been legible for over three and a half centuries. That inscription, incised in Roman lettering, reads: HEERE LAYETH IOHN WOOLS, and beneath that, the year 1673.

The slab is recorded in the Urban Survey of Limerick, compiled by Bradley and colleagues in 1989, which describes it as a fragmentary limestone grave slab positioned between the first and second pier on the north side of the nave. The survey catalogues it under the reference LI005-017015-, placing it formally within the archaeological record of the city. Beyond those details, the historical record is quiet on John Wools himself. The name does not appear to belong to any well-documented Limerick family of the period, and the slab's modest dimensions suggest either that it was always small, perhaps a marker for a child, or that a larger original has been broken and only this portion survives. The 1670s were a turbulent decade in Limerick's history, falling in the aftermath of the Cromwellian wars and the displacement and reshaping of the city's population, which makes the survival of any personal memorial from that era quietly remarkable.

St. Mary's Cathedral is a working Church of Ireland cathedral and is generally open to visitors during daytime hours, though it is worth checking ahead, particularly outside the summer months. The slab itself sits on the floor of the north nave, between the first and second piers, which means it is easy to walk past without realising what is underfoot. It rewards a slower kind of looking, the sort where you crouch down and read the letters directly rather than glancing from a distance. The incised Roman lettering remains clear despite the slab's fragmentary condition, and it is precisely that directness, a name and a year, nothing else, that gives it its particular quality.