The carving is done in low false relief, a technique in which the background is cut away to leave figures raised within a recessed panel, and the style is conspicuously naïve. Christ's arms are disproportionately long, his feet twisted to one side with one resting on top of the other, his forked beard rendered in a few plain lines, and his halo a ring of spiky radiating points. The cross itself is absent, its presence suggested only by the recessed frame of the panel. What makes the slab stranger still is an image on its left-hand side, now heavily weathered, that appears to show either a two-headed bird with outstretched wings and long legs, or two birds with opposing bodies and intertwined necks. The right-hand side of the slab is entirely blank.

The carving is thought to date from the seventeenth century, though the imagery it employs draws on a much longer tradition. The two flanking figures, both depicted in heavy cowls and long robes, are understood to represent the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. The Virgin's posture, her hand raised with the elbow supported by her other arm, follows a convention well established in medieval crucifixion iconography. The mysterious bird adds a further layer of ambiguity. It may be heraldic in origin, but scholars have also noted that the eagle carried considerable symbolic weight in medieval Christian thought: it was associated with John the Evangelist, and also used as a figure for Christ himself, drawing on biblical passages that linked the eagle's flight to the Resurrection and Ascension. Whether the carver at Turlough intended one reading, both, or neither is not recorded. The Office of Public Works placed the plaque in its current position above the doorway, and a second crucifixion plaque is set into the west wall of the church's south transept nearby.