An effigial tomb is one carved with a recumbent likeness of the deceased, and the double variety, showing two figures side by side, is a relatively rare form anywhere in medieval Europe. That one of the finest early examples might be sitting largely unnoticed in a damaged slab in rural Limerick is, to put it mildly, remarkable.

The slab dates from the second half of the 13th century and was associated with the church of the Hospital of Aney, also known as the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, a institution connected to the Knights Hospitaller, a military and religious order that operated across medieval Christendom. The two figures carved upon the stone are an Anglo-Norman knight and his lady. The scholar John Hunt, writing in 1974, provided a careful description of what can still be made out despite considerable damage. The knight lies to the right, clad in a mail coat and coif, the close-fitting hood of chain armour that covered the head and neck. A surcoat is worn over the hauberk, the full-length mail shirt, and a sword is visible behind the leg on the slab, with the legs appearing to have been crossed, a common convention in the period. A muffe, the padded glove of mail worn over the hand, hangs from the right wrist and drapes over the edge of the slab in what Hunt described as a naturalistic manner. Most striking is the intimacy of the composition: the knight's left arm appears to encircle the lady's shoulders, his hand grasping the left side of a shield that covers her. Her left hand rests upon her breast above the shield. She seems to wear a veiled headdress with a flattened, perhaps pill-box-shaped top, and the folds of her gown are visible along the left side of the slab. The pair each rest upon separate rectangular pillows.

The site sits within the remains of the church recorded as LI032-147002 in the national monuments database. The damage to the slab is significant enough that some details remain uncertain, and Hunt noted that the tomb's potential significance had never been properly drawn to scholarly attention. Visitors should expect a site in the condition typical of long-unroofed medieval churches, and should look carefully at the south-east corner of the ruin, where the slab lies. Close attention to what survives rewards patience; even in its broken state, the tenderness of the composition is legible in stone.