The text, cut in relief with commas between words and certain letters conjoined in the fashion of the period, sprawls across four panels and reads with the breathless, accumulative confidence of Tudor official prose. It announces that the bridge of Athlone was raised from the main earth under the water on the twentieth day of July in the ninth year of the reign of Elizabeth I, queen of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith.

The inscription credits two men in particular. Sir Henry Sidney, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Lord President of the Council in Wales and Lord Deputy General of Ireland, is named as the driving force behind the project. The actual work of overseeing the construction fell to Sir Peter Lewis, described as clerk, chanter of Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, and steward to the Lord Deputy. The stone boasts that the bridge was finished in less than one year through Lewis's industry and diligence, and the text does not stop there. It goes on to list other achievements of Sidney's deputyship, including works at Dublin Castle, the abolition of coyne and livery (a system of billeting soldiers on the local population, long resented as an arbitrary burden), and, in a more brutal aside, the defeat of Shane O'Neill, described as arch-rebel, whose head was set on the gate of Dublin Castle. The inscription breaks off mid-sentence, the final words trailing into a claim about the tranquillity and peace brought to the realm, leaving the boast unfinished in stone as it is in history.