It measures just thirty centimetres long and fifty-two centimetres high, broken and partially recut at some point in its history, yet what survives on its face is quietly arresting: a bird carved in false relief, one wing raised, set beneath a plain border and above fragments of blind tracery, the latter being a decorative stonecutting technique that mimics the arched and interlocking window patterns of Gothic architecture without any actual opening behind it.

The fragment is thought to have formed part of a chest tomb, a box-shaped funerary monument common in late medieval Ireland, typically consisting of a carved stone chest supporting an effigy slab on top. The decorative band bearing the bird may originally have run along the top of a front panel on such a monument. A second fragment of similar character has also been identified at the same church and may well have come from the same tomb, suggesting that what was once a more complete and elaborate piece has been broken up and scattered over time. The church itself, St Mary's, is a substantial medieval structure and was the parish church of Callan, a town with a well-documented Anglo-Norman foundation. The identity of whoever commissioned or was commemorated by the tomb is not known from what survives.