Just over 1.8 metres long and tapering from roughly 66 centimetres at the head to just under 40 centimetres at the base, it is not especially large by medieval standards, but the detail cut into its surface repays a close look. An incised cross is formed with two parallel lines, its head shaped as an open lozenge with concave sides, each arm ending in a fleur-de-lis terminal. The shaft carries a circular knop directly below the cross-head, and a matching arrangement of knop and fleur-de-lis closes the shaft at its lower end. The bevelled edges of the slab give it a clean, finished quality that suggests this was no ordinary marker.

Kells Priory was founded for Augustinian canons, an order of clergy who followed the Rule of Saint Augustine and lived a communal life oriented around both prayer and pastoral work. The priory, located in the townland of Rathduff, accumulated a remarkably large collection of graveslabs over its history, and this particular example has been dated on stylistic grounds to the 13th or 14th century. The fleur-de-lis was a motif that appeared widely in high medieval ecclesiastical carving across Ireland and Britain during this period, lending an air of Continental influence to what might otherwise seem a purely local tradition. The slab was catalogued and described in detail by J. Higgins in a study of the medieval funerary monuments from the site, published as part of a wider account of archaeological excavations carried out at the priory.