The stone commemorates one John Fox, identified as a prior of an Augustinian house known as Holy Cross, and the date carved into it has generated genuine scholarly disagreement. For a long time the year was read as 1519, but a closer examination of the inscription suggests it should be 1531, a small difference that nonetheless matters when trying to place a man within the record of his own community.

The inscription, rendered in Gothic lettering, reads in translation: "Here lies the Reverend lord John Fox, formerly Prior of Holy Cross, who closed his last day on the 28th day of the month of August, in the year of Our Lord 1531; on whose soul may God have mercy." The phrase "closed his last day" is a literal rendering of the Latin "clausit extremum," a conventional formula in medieval funerary Latin. Fitzgerald, writing in 1910, noted that the date had been incorrectly given as 1519 by a Mr. Dowd, and flagged that a partially illegible word near the beginning of the inscription ends in "dus," which he tentatively read as "dns," an abbreviation of "Dominus," a standard Latin title for a clergyman. The Urban Survey of Limerick, compiled by Bradley and colleagues in 1989, recorded the slab formally and retained the earlier date of 1519, meaning the two readings exist side by side in the scholarship without a definitive resolution. The Augustinian establishment Fox headed was apparently also called Holy Cross, a name shared with other religious houses in medieval Ireland.

St. Mary's Cathedral is open to visitors and sits on the south bank of the Shannon in Limerick city centre, the oldest part of the medieval town. The north transept, where the slab is set into the wall, is accessible during normal opening hours. The inscription itself is largely legible, though that one damaged word near the opening continues to resist a clean reading. Bringing a torch or relying on good natural light will help when working through the Gothic lettering, which rewards patience. The question of whether the date is 1519 or 1531 remains, in the strictest sense, open.