A chest tomb is exactly what the name suggests, a large box-shaped stone monument placed over a burial, and this one belongs to the White family. What makes it unusual is not its form but its address: it was not built for this place, and it arrived here under circumstances that speak to both the fragility of urban heritage and the instinct, common enough in Ireland, to find a safer home for things that might otherwise be lost.

The tomb was originally erected in the White Mortuary Chapel inside St. Mary's Church in Clonmel, a few miles to the south-east. When that mortuary chapel was demolished in 1805, the composite chest tomb was carefully relocated to St. Patrick's Well, where it has remained ever since, sheltered within the medieval church interior. The move preserved a family monument that would otherwise have been broken up or buried under rubble, though it also gave the tomb a quietly displaced quality, a permanent guest in a building it was never designed for.