It measures roughly 0.8 metres by 0.6 metres, and it bears the Fitzgerald coat of arms, the heraldic mark of one of the most powerful Norman dynasties in Irish history. That a piece of carved stonework with such an august pedigree should end up in a field boundary wall is, in its quiet way, a small story about how buildings get stripped and repurposed across the centuries.

The slab's journey has taken it through at least two homes before its current resting place. It originated in a tower house, the type of fortified stone residence built widely by Anglo-Norman and Gaelic families across Ireland from the fourteenth century onwards, which once stood adjacent to the property now known as Castle Lishen. At some point the stone was moved from the tower house to Castle Lishen itself, where it was set above the front door, a conventional position for an armorial plaque, announcing the family's identity to anyone approaching the entrance. It was recorded in that position by Grove White in a survey published between 1905 and 1925. Since then it has migrated again, this time into the roadside wall beside the house, where it remains today. The Fitzgerald family, also known as the Geraldines, held extensive lands across Munster and Leinster following the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland, and their heraldic devices appear on monuments and architectural fragments scattered across Cork and the surrounding counties.