Set into the north transept wall of Kildare's modern Carmelite church, a small limestone panel carries a carved animal that refuses to sit quietly. The creature's head is wrenched back against its own body, teeth bared, snout curved; the hair along its spine is rendered in tight curls, the tail dissolves into foliage, and the feet end in claws. The carving is in high relief, meaning the figure projects distinctly from the background, giving it an almost sculptural presence in what is otherwise plain wall. At roughly 40 centimetres tall and 60 wide, it is easy to overlook, yet the quality and strangeness of the work suggest it once belonged somewhere considerably more significant.

This panel is one of five late medieval limestone pieces now embedded in that transept wall, and their origins are disputed. The most straightforward explanation would place them in the earlier Carmelite friary that formerly stood immediately to the south. Bradley and colleagues, writing in 1986, argued otherwise, attributing the panels instead to the Franciscan friary that also once occupied the town. Kildare had both communities present during the medieval period, and the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century left the physical fabric of such houses vulnerable to reuse, dispersal, and gradual absorption into later buildings. Which friary actually produced this particular animal, with its foliated tail and backward glare, remains unresolved.