That small decorative detail, understated as it is, marks this out from the plainest medieval grave markers, and the slab itself is substantial: just over two metres long, tapering slightly along its length, with chamfered edges, meaning the stone has been cut at an angle along its sides to produce a bevelled profile rather than a blunt face. It is the kind of careful stonework that suggests some degree of status for whoever lies beneath.

The priory at Lorrha has deep roots in Irish ecclesiastical history, and the presence of a medieval graveslab of this quality at its eastern end fits the pattern of high-status burials being positioned close to the altar, the most sacred part of any church. The slab is limestone, a material widely used across the Irish midlands for funerary monuments throughout the medieval period, and its dimensions, roughly two metres by sixty centimetres, are consistent with a full-length adult burial marker. The raised cross with its horizontal terminal lines is plain but deliberate, and would have been immediately legible to any medieval visitor as a Christian grave marker of some formality.