Inside a church at Ballynadrumny in County Kildare, a single graveslab carries two separate inscriptions, written in different lettering, separated by perhaps a century or more, and both commemorating a man named Thomas Ashe. It is the kind of object that quietly refuses to be straightforward, layering one family's grief over another's without explanation or apology.

The slab itself is thought to date from the 17th century, a judgement made by Fitzgerald writing between 1899 and 1902. The earlier of its two inscriptions records the burial of a Thomas Ashe but carries no date, leaving its precise age uncertain. The second inscription, cut in a noticeably different style of lettering, names another Thomas Ashe and is dated 1792. Whether the two men were related, and why the same stone was chosen again generations later, the slab does not say. It sits alongside a 16th century graveslab in the same church, making the building an unusual concentration of early funerary stonework for what is otherwise an unassuming rural site.