That detail alone gives it an unusual character: what is now essentially a floor monument was originally raised, designed to be looked at from the side as much as from above. Alongside a companion slab nearby, also from the sixteenth century and decorated with a raised eight-pointed cross, it survives in the chancel of a roofless medieval ruin, its Black Letter Latin inscription still legible after more than four centuries.

The inscription was transcribed by the historian William Carrigan in 1905 and records two burials. Patrick Shortall, son and heir of Richard Shortall of Rathardmore, died on 24th May 1592. His wife, Helen Den, had preceded him by seventeen years, dying on 12th March 1575. The inscription identifies Patrick as a gentleman, a term with specific social weight in late medieval Ireland, indicating a man of some landed standing below the rank of nobility. The family name Shortall was well established in the Kilkenny area, and the reference to Rathardmore as the family's seat roots them firmly in the local landscape. The formula of the inscription follows conventions common to Catholic memorial culture of the period, closing with a direct appeal: "Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on the souls of those whose bodies are interred in this tomb." The fact that it is rendered in Black Letter, a formal Gothic script associated with ecclesiastical and legal documents, suggests the commissioner wanted the monument to carry a certain gravity and permanence.