Two metres long and nearly a metre across at its widest point, it is substantial enough to have covered someone of consequence, yet whoever that person was has been swallowed entirely by time. The slab carries no inscription, or at least none that has survived the wear of centuries.

What it does carry is a carefully carved seven-armed cross, an unusual variant on the more familiar forms, with fleur-de-lis terminals at the ends of its arms, the shaft rising from a pyramidal base, and four small pitted hollows cut into the arms themselves. The fleur-de-lis, a stylised lily motif with roots in both heraldic and devotional traditions, was a popular decorative choice on Irish funerary stonework of the seventeenth century, and the slab is dated to that period. Holycross Abbey itself, a Cistercian foundation established in the twelfth century on the banks of the River Suir, was by then in the later stages of a complex history of use, suppression, and partial survival. The chapel where the slab rests is the first chapel south of the chancel in the south transept, one of the more sheltered and enclosed spaces in the surviving structure.

The slab lies on the surface rather than being set flush into the floor, which makes it easier to examine the carving closely. The decoration is worn but legible, and the geometry of the cross design rewards a patient look.