Set within a pointed trefoil-headed recess, the kind of arched niche formed by three overlapping lobes common in medieval ecclesiastical stonework, the plaque measures roughly 68 by 63 centimetres, modest enough to be overlooked by visitors whose eyes drift upward toward the cathedral's more imposing architecture. Yet it carries a precise and deliberate inscription in raised script: LAUS DEO 1574 / SCUTUM SALL, meaning "Praise to God 1574, The shield of Sall."

The plaque belongs to the Sall family, a Tipperary merchant dynasty who announced themselves here in heraldic terms. The shield displays a label over the attires of a stag, that is, the antlered headpiece of a stag rather than the full animal, and is flanked on either side by stag supporters, figures positioned as if holding up the shield. What makes the monument particularly unusual, though, is what sits beneath the heraldry: a merchant's mark. These personal symbols, distinct from coats of arms and used by trading families to identify their goods and property, are rarely encountered in Irish ecclesiastical contexts, making this a genuinely uncommon survival. The mark is flanked by the letters E and K, which are thought to represent the first initials of one of the Salls and his wife, though their full names are not recorded. The date 1574 anchors the monument in the later sixteenth century, a period when merchant families across Munster were asserting civic and religious prominence through exactly this kind of permanent, carved commemoration.