That detail alone captures something of the layered, sometimes accidental way the Irish past surfaces. The slab emerged from the eastern end of the chancel at Kells Priory in County Kilkenny during the late nineteenth century, and it has since been catalogued as one of a remarkably large collection of medieval funerary monuments associated with the site.

Kells Priory was a house of Augustinian canons, a religious order whose members lived under the Rule of St Augustine and combined monastic life with pastoral duties. The priory complex at Kells is one of the most substantial surviving medieval ecclesiastical enclosures in Ireland. The graveslab itself is a tapering stone, wider at the head than the foot, incised with a cross whose four-armed head takes a lozenge form with concave sides and fleur-de-lis terminals, the decorative lily-like motif common in medieval stonework. Small circular knops, raised or incised round bosses, punctuate the shaft. Running along the edge of the right-hand face and continuing across the base is an inscription in Lombardic script, the rounded, ornamental lettering used widely across medieval Europe. It reads, in translation: Here lies Johanna, widow of Hugh the clerk, on whose soul God have mercy. Based on historical references, the slab has been dated to around 1330, placing it in the early fourteenth century, though its stylistic features are consistent with the broader thirteenth to fourteenth century range. Johanna herself remains otherwise unknown, and Hugh the clerk, identified through his occupation rather than a family name, is a figure who has attracted some scholarly attention in local historical circles precisely because of how little can be pinned down about him.