Lying slightly under a metre and a half long, it tapers from a width of sixty centimetres at the top to forty-five at the base, and its surface carries a seven-armed segmental cross carved in relief, its terminals finished in fleur-de-lis, with cross-bands marking the junction of the arms and the shaft, and a pillar-base form at the foot. Running along both sides, across the top and base, and even down the shaft itself, a Black Letter inscription winds its way around the entire composition in a manner that treats text and carving as a single integrated design rather than two separate elements.

The inscription, though worn and partially illegible in places, names the person commemorated as O'Kearny, described by the Latin word conubius in connection with the church of Saint Patrick at Cashel. The term, which appears to be Church Latin rather than classical, likely means something close to servant or attendant of God, suggesting a formal ecclesiastical role rather than a simple lay burial. The date of death is recorded precisely: the seventh day of May, in the year 1503. The slab was commissioned, or so the closing lines suggest, by Patrick O'Kearny, the son of the deceased, a fairly common medieval practice of filial piety made permanent in stone. The first name of the man commemorated presents its own puzzle; the inscription reads as Julius, though the reading is uncertain, and a small break at the lower right corner of the slab has taken a fragment of the text with it.