" It is not a phrase you are likely to encounter anywhere else in the city, and the stone itself, two metres tall and a metre wide, is substantial enough that it is hard to overlook, yet it draws relatively little attention compared to the architectural fabric surrounding it.

The slab commemorates Matthew Terrell, who died in 1619, and it sits within St Audeon's on High Street, a church whose origins reach back to the twelfth century and which represents the only surviving medieval parish church in Dublin. The stone is cut from granite and decorated in low false relief, a technique in which the design is raised only slightly from the background surface, giving the carved shield and its motto a quiet, almost recessive quality rather than the sharp drama of deeper carving. The upper part of the slab has been repaired at some point, suggesting the stone has had a complicated afterlife within the building. The inscription appears below the shield. The Terrell name is not among the most frequently cited in Dublin's early modern history, which makes the monument something of a small puzzle; the motto, with its suggestion of spiritual elevation or perhaps of worldly hierarchy, offers no obvious clue about the man's profession or standing, only a studied ambiguity that was fashionable in funerary commemoration of the period.

St Audeon's is located on High Street in the Liberties area of Dublin, close to the old city walls and the surviving Cornmarket gate. The church is managed by the Office of Public Works and is generally open to visitors during the summer months, though it is worth checking current opening arrangements before travelling. The nave, where the Terrell stone stands, is the older part of the structure; a newer Church of Ireland building adjoins it to the west. The stone is set against the interior wall and is best examined in daylight, when the low relief decoration becomes easier to read. Those with an interest in early modern epigraphy, the study of inscriptions, will find the combination of heraldic carving and Latin motto typical of its era, and the repaired upper section is itself a quiet record of the building's long and sometimes turbulent history.