It is easy to walk past without noticing. The inscription reads "Thomas Archiepiscopus Cashelensis Aº Domini 1647", identifying an Archbishop of Cashel and a date. The plaque itself is modest in size, roughly 63 by 48 centimetres, but its carved detail repays attention: a cable moulding frames the whole, and a diagonal seam of quartz cuts visibly through the upper half of the stone like a natural signature. The shield is rectangular with an ogee-shaped base, meaning it curves to a gentle point, and is charged with a chevron between three broad arrowheads pointing upwards. Above it sits a cross with clover-leaf terminals, a ring collar, and a knotted, tasselled cord. The proprietor has noted that the plaque was once painted; stripped of that colour, it now reads as plain limestone.

The Archbishop named is Thomas Walsh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cashel, a figure whose biography traces an unusually wide geography. Born in Waterford, he was sent first to Lisbon with a view to a commercial career, then redirected to the Irish College at Salamanca for priestly formation. He served in the diocese of Waterford for twenty years before being consecrated Archbishop in Rome on 7th June 1626. He died in 1654 and was buried at the Church of St James in Compostella. The date 1647 on the plaque falls within the period of the Confederation of Kilkenny, a short-lived Catholic political and military coalition that governed much of Ireland between 1642 and 1649. In the relatively tolerant conditions it created, Walsh restored and refitted a number of Protestant churches for Catholic use. The 1647 date may mark the endowment of one such building, or alternatively the completion of an ecclesiastical college in Cashel that he is said to have financed in the years before the Confederation. Neither interpretation can be confirmed with certainty. The plaque's original location is unknown, and it has been in its current position on the pub facade for at least a century.