The stone, nearly two metres long and tapering slightly from its widest point of 0.57 metres down to 0.4 metres at the base, was not carved to be a piece of wall. It was made to lie flat over someone, and the quality of its decoration makes clear that someone mattered.

The slab is carved in relief with a seven-armed segmental-headed cross, meaning the head is formed from a flattened arc rather than a full circle, with fleur-de-lis terminals at each arm. A three-barred knop sits at the junction of the cross-head and shaft, and the shaft itself rises from a stepped base. Along the left-hand side of the stone, a Latin inscription runs in Black Letter script, the angular lettering typical of late medieval ecclesiastical carving. The opening word, HIC, is raised in relief; the rest is incised, cut directly into the surface. Worn by time, the text has been partially recovered by Maher, writing in 1997, who read it as HIC IACET PIUS V(I)(R) D(U?)S L/IBA..ER, translating it tentatively as "Here lies Pius, noble husband." The gaps and uncertainties in the transcription are honest ones; several letters are simply gone. The church beside which the slab now stands was built on the site of a former Cistercian abbey, a monastic order known for its austere architecture and widespread presence across medieval Ireland, which suggests the slab may originally have belonged to that earlier religious community, or to someone connected with it.