The plaque bore the coat of arms of John Sweetman, dated 1580 and marked with his initials, I.S., and for three centuries it remained in place at Castle Eve, fixed into the stonework of what was described as the most ancient part of the ruins. Then, in 1886, it was removed.

The detail we have of the plaque's heraldry is precise, thanks to the historian Carrigan, writing in 1905. The shield was divided vertically, a arrangement known in heraldry as party per pale, with the dexter side displaying ermine patterning alongside a horizontal band and a chevron, the traditional Sweetman arms, and the sinister side showing a fretwork pattern with an eagle displayed, wings spread. Carrigan noted that the design matched exactly what could be seen on Sweetman's monument in Newtown church, suggesting the same hand or at least the same patron overseeing both commissions. The plaque had originally been set into a mural tower, a wall tower forming part of a fortified structure, which gives some sense of how Castle Eve was built and how the Sweetman family wanted their presence recorded in stone.

The slab is now held at Rothe House in Kilkenny city, a fine early seventeenth-century merchant's townhouse that today operates as a museum and archive. Visitors to Rothe House have the opportunity to see the plaque in a context rather different from the ruined tower it once occupied, which is perhaps fitting for an object that has already outlasted the building it was made for.