The upper section of an old headstone has been lifted from its original context and set directly above the font, so that anyone entering the church passes beneath a skull and crossbones positioned over a coffin, flanked by a bell and an hourglass. It is an unusually frank greeting for a place of worship, even by the standards of Irish funerary art.

The carving belongs to a tradition of mortality symbolism that was widespread on Irish and British gravestones from the seventeenth century onwards. The skull and crossbones signified death itself, the hourglass the swift passage of time, and the bell the tolling that marked a soul's departure. What makes this piece particularly striking is the Latin inscription running across the central of three arches: CVM SIT VITA BREVIS DISCITO BENE MORI, which translates roughly as "since life is short, learn to die well." The side arches carry angels, figures associated with the soul's passage rather than its extinction, providing a counterpoint to the grimmer symbols. At some point the top section of this headstone was separated from whatever grave it once marked and given a second life as an architectural insert above the font, a rather literal reminder of mortality placed at the very threshold of a sacred space.