What survived was enough to make it remarkable: a narrow, trapezium-shaped stone, tapering from twenty-three inches wide to eighteen, bearing a carved eight-armed ringed cross with trefoil terminals, the whole bordered by a black letter inscription that is now extremely difficult to read. Black letter, the dense Gothic script common to late medieval manuscripts and stonework, was still in use across Ireland well into the sixteenth century, and its presence here places this slab firmly within that tradition.

The inscription, though largely illegible, is thought to date the slab to 1508, based on scholarly readings by Fitzgerald in the early twentieth century and Zajac and colleagues in 1995. The stone was originally discovered at the graveyard associated with the site at Castleland and was subsequently moved into the nearby church for safekeeping. Grove White, who documented so much of Cork's antiquarian material in the early decades of the twentieth century, noted the slab between 1905 and 1925, recording its dimensions and position before any further deterioration. At roughly three feet in length, even in its damaged state, it gives a clear sense of the care that went into its original cutting: the ringed cross, a form with deep roots in Irish ecclesiastical carving, here gains an unusual elaboration through its eight arms and the decorative trefoil, a three-lobed terminal that appears frequently in late medieval Irish stonework.

The slab is now housed inside the church at Castleland, though access to it has not always been straightforward. Anyone with a particular interest in late medieval funerary carving would do well to make enquiries locally before visiting, as the interior is not routinely open.