Most people come for the abbey itself, a Franciscan friary founded in the fifteenth century and now one of the better-preserved monastic ruins in Munster. But this small slab, measuring roughly 66 centimetres tall and 48 centimetres wide, draws attention to a moment of recovery rather than foundation, a deliberate act of renewal during one of the more turbulent periods in Irish ecclesiastical history.

The inscription, carved in relief, reads: "Orate pro felicitate fratris Thadei Nolani qui hunc sacrum Conventum de novo renovare Curavit anno domini millessimo Sexcentesimo vicessimo sexto." Translated, it asks the reader to pray for the happiness of Brother Thaddeus Nolan, who took care to restore this sacred convent anew in the year of the Lord 1626. That date places the work squarely in the aftermath of the Elizabethan and Jacobean suppressions, when Franciscan communities in Ireland were operating under considerable legal and political pressure. That a friar would commission a stone recording such a restoration, and that it would survive embedded in the fabric of the wall, suggests both a degree of local protection and a deliberate wish to mark the achievement for posterity. The phrasing "de novo renovare," to restore anew, implies the building had fallen into serious disrepair before Nolan's intervention.

The stone remains in situ in the chancel wall, which means it is visible to anyone walking through the abbey ruins. It rewards a slow look, particularly for those who can work through the Latin, since the monumental script and the compressed phrasing carry a certain quiet dignity that a looser vernacular record might not.