A chest tomb is essentially a stone box, raised off the ground and often elaborately carved, used to mark the burial place of a person of rank or religious standing. This one almost certainly holds an abbot of the Augustinian canons who made Ballintubber their home, yet no record survives to name him with certainty. That anonymity gives the tomb a quietly unsettling quality: the carving is accomplished, the placement deliberate and honoured, and yet the man commemorated has slipped entirely from the historical record.

The abbey's 15th-century abbots, at least those whose names do survive, were not uniformly pious figures. Thomas O'Ronain was accused in 1462 of malversation, meaning the corrupt use of the abbey's property and revenues. Edmund de Stanton fared little better in reputation: sources record that he held private property, did not reside in the monastery, admitted a man to the canons in exchange for payment, and, described as unlearned, neither prayed nor celebrated the divine offices. Whether either man is the tomb's occupant is impossible to say, but their documented careers give a flavour of the community in which this monument was made. The carving on the tomb's front face is organised into two panels, each containing two ogee-headed canopies, with half-canopies at either side. An ogee arch curves outward before returning to a point, a form common in late medieval ecclesiastical decoration, and here each one is filled with trefoil tracery and a stylised flower or vine-leaf at its centre. The pinnacles framing the canopies also terminate in foliage, and more stylised leaves appear at the apex of each ogee-head, giving the whole surface a densely ornamented, almost botanical character.