The font belongs to Gowran, Co. Kilkenny, and its presence in a Carlow cathedral is the quiet result of a relocation that has left it somewhat stranded from its original context.

The font dates to the 13th century and was originally housed in St Mary's Church in Gowran. Its form is distinctive: a large square bowl decorated with rounded arcades, a style consistent with the Romanesque tradition in which semicircular arches and heavy carved ornament were the dominant architectural language of ecclesiastical stonework. Each side carries ten heavy Romanesque flutes, and the top surface is worked with fleur-de-lis decoration, the stylised lily motif that appeared frequently in medieval sacred art across Europe. The bowl rests on a drum-shaped base that may be a later addition rather than original to the piece. According to the architectural historian Pike, writing in 1989, this is indeed the font moved from St Mary's in Gowran to its current home in Old Leighlin, though the precise circumstances and timing of that move are not recorded. That it survived at all, and in reasonably legible condition, is worth noting: carved limestone fonts from the 13th century are not especially common, and this one retains enough of its surface detail to make the original decorative scheme clearly legible.