It is the kind of object that could be mistaken for decorative whimsy, a piece of garden ornament chosen for effect, but it is almost certainly far older and far more significant than its current setting suggests.

The panel is believed to originate from the medieval Dominican friary that once stood in Tralee, a foundation whose fabric was largely lost to the upheavals of the post-Reformation centuries. How the carving survived, and by what route it ended up embedded in a rockery rather than preserved in a museum or left in situ, is not recorded. What remains is the object itself: a fragment of medieval stonework, figurative and detailed enough to have been given its own descriptive name, repurposed into a garden feature at some point after the friary's decline. The Dominicans, a mendicant order who arrived in Ireland in the thirteenth century, were known for building ambitious stone churches and conventual buildings; decorative carving, including fantastical creatures, was a common feature of such architecture. Whether this panel once formed part of a doorway, a window surround, or an interior screen is unknown.