It is one of five such plaques inserted into that wall during the seventeenth century, though where any of them originally stood is no longer known. This particular one is made from two separate slabs, and the upper slab is notably fossiliferous, its surface dense with the remnants of ancient marine creatures pressed into the stone long before anyone thought to carve words into it.

The lower slab bears a royal coat of arms: a crowned shield quartering the fleur-de-lys of France with the lions of England, flanked by a dragon on the right-hand side and a greyhound on the left, both looking backward over their shoulders in what heraldry calls the regardant pose. Tudor roses occupy each corner, and beneath the shield a portcullis badge appears twice, a symbol originally belonging to the Beaufort family before it was absorbed into Tudor royal iconography. The upper slab carries an inscription in raised Lombardic capitals, a rounded, formal lettering style associated with medieval and early modern stonework, which reads, in expanded Latin, as Edward VI, by the Grace of God King of England, France and Ireland. The arms themselves, however, belong to Henry VIII rather than Edward. The dragon and greyhound supporters were used by Henry but not by his son, which means the two slabs were almost certainly made at different times. The coat of arms most likely dates from after 1534, when Henry decreed that his royal arms be displayed in churches throughout the realm as a declaration of his supremacy over the Church of England and, by extension, its Irish counterpart. The inscription naming Edward would then have been added as a replacement slab following his accession in 1547, during a reign that lasted only until 1553.

The plaque sits on the west side at the top of St. Canice's steps, and the fossiliferous texture of the upper slab is visible on close inspection, a detail easy to miss if you are concentrating on the lettering. The two-slab construction, once you know to look for it, makes the seam between the Tudor father's arms and his Protestant son's name legible as a physical fact in the stone itself.