The refusal came from no lesser authority than St. Senan, the sixth-century monastic founder who according to tradition permitted no woman to set foot on the island, even in death. The grave, if it exists at all, sits just outside the boundary of that prohibition, a physical marker of a story that has been circulating for well over a thousand years.

The legend originates in a metrical life of St. Senan, where the woman turned away is named as the holy nun Cannara. The antiquary John O'Donovan encountered the local tradition when he visited in 1839, recording that a flag on the shoreline was said to cover her remains. The Ordnance Survey first edition map of 1841 duly names the spot Lady's Grave, which tells you something about how firmly the story had embedded itself in local knowledge by that point. The legend proved durable well beyond Clare. Thomas Moore drew on it for his poem "Oh haste and leave this sacred isle", published in the second volume of his Irish Melodies, though his version softened and romanticised the original considerably. Whether the stone itself was ever a genuine early medieval grave marker or simply a natural feature that accumulated meaning around a pre-existing story is impossible to say. Researchers have not been able to physically inspect the flag and confirm that any monument exists there at all.

Visitors to Scattery Island, which is accessible by ferry from Kilrush, should be aware that the point in question lies on the western shoreline and that the ground around it is rough and uneven. The flag, if it is still visible, would be easy to miss without prior knowledge of its location.