In the accompanying photograph we can see how the sunlight shows up this remarkably well-preserved memorial plaque from 1631. The inscription in Latin reads:

DIERMITIVS MAC CONSIDIN PRO / SE ET SVIS POSTERIS HVNC TVMV / LVM FIERI FECIT ANNO 1631 / EST COMMVNE MORI MORS NVLLI / PARCIT HONORI DEBILIS ET FORTIS / VENIVNT AD FVNERA / MORTIS

This was translated by the late Fr. Senan Hedderman OFM in 1991 as:

Dermot Mac Considine for him and posterity this tomb caused to be made (in the) year 1631. It is common to die, death spares no one. The honourable, the weak and the strong come to the funeral rites of death.

This is the oldest fully legible gravestone in the friary. Writing in 1641 Anthony Broudin referred to the tombs of various Gaelic families in the nave of Ennis Friary. Stones survive from those of the Considines, Hehirs and Kerins, all dating to the 1600s. The memorial also contains an inscribed Celtic cross on the left, this is one of only two Celtic crosses found in the friary and they are both associated with the Considine surname. The other is a replica high cross erected in 1924 by the people of Ennis in memory of Michael G. Considine on the 40th anniversary of his death in 1884. He was fondly remembered as a staunch supporter of and great friend to Daniel O’Connell.

References: Westropp, Thomas Johnson. Journal of the Association for the Preservation of the Memorials of the Dead, 1895 Vol III (I) http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/genealogy/memorials/drumcliff.htm