What makes them quietly arresting is precisely what cannot be said about them: their date remains undetermined. They are simply there, embedded in the floor, anonymous markers of people whose identities have not survived.

Ardfert, in north Kerry, was an important ecclesiastical centre from an early period, and the Franciscan friary was founded there in the medieval era. The friary church, within which these slabs are set, is the structure that contains them, though the slabs themselves resist easy categorisation. The Urban Archaeology Survey of County Kerry, compiled by Bradley, Halpin and King, records all nine together, noting only their material, their number, and the fact that they cannot be reliably dated. Limestone was a common choice for grave markers throughout Ireland, being workable and locally available in many regions, but the absence of any further detail here means these particular slabs sit outside the usual frameworks of attribution or commemoration.