What makes them quietly peculiar is how little is known about them. Despite being formally recorded as national monuments, their date remains undetermined, leaving open the question of who, exactly, is commemorated beneath them.

Ardfert itself was a significant ecclesiastical centre in medieval Kerry, closely associated with St Brendan the Navigator, and the Franciscan friary there was a substantial complex. Grave slabs of this kind were a common feature of medieval Irish churches and friaries; a plain or carved limestone slab would be laid over a burial, sometimes incised with a cross, a sword, or other identifying symbols, and sometimes left entirely plain. The nine slabs at Ardfert belong to this broader tradition, but without datable inscriptions or clear iconography, they resist easy classification. Whether they mark the graves of friars, local gentry, or benefactors of the community is simply not known.