Its closing line, incised in running hand, translates roughly as: "Pray, traveller, for their eternal rest." That direct appeal across nearly four centuries is quietly arresting, a private grief pressed into stone and left waiting for strangers.

The plaque, measuring 0.87 metres by 0.67 metres and carved from fossiliferous limestone, the kind in which the outlines of ancient marine creatures are visible within the rock itself, was set up around 1646. It commemorates William Shee, identified in the Latin inscription as the son of Gaspar Shee, and described in the careful language of the period as a man conspicuous for Christian piety, integrity, prudence, and strength of character. The monument was erected by William for himself, his beloved wife Maria Crispe, and their children and descendants. Above the inscription sits a heraldic shield worked in false relief, displaying the Shee coat of arms impaled with those of the Crispe family, a standard way of combining a husband's and wife's armorial bearings in a single composition. Beneath the shield, the motto reads "VINCIT VERITAS", truth conquers. The inscription opens with "D.O.M.", an abbreviation for "Deo Optimo Maximo", to God the best and greatest, a conventional Catholic dedication of the period. Around 1900, the historian Carrigan recorded the plaque as standing in the nave of the church. It was later moved, around 1960, to what is now known as the Monuments Room in the north transept, where it remains today, gathered among other displaced memorials in a space that functions as a kind of stone archive of Kilkenny's post-medieval families.