Whether it has sunk partially into the ground, been obscured by debris, or simply requires more patient looking than a brief visit allows, it was not visible when the site was checked in June 2019.

The slab was recorded by Thomas Johnson Westropp, the prolific antiquarian and Clare topographer, who noted it in 1897 as sitting in the middle of the church floor, its epitaph running along the edge in raised black letters. A Canon Dwyer had managed to read part of the inscription, deciphering it as 'Hic Jacet Magister Cornelius', the opening of a standard Latin memorial formula meaning 'Here lies Master Cornelius'. The title 'Magister' typically denoted a man of some learning or ecclesiastical standing, though nothing further about this particular Cornelius is recorded. Canon Island itself takes its name from the Augustinian house established there in the medieval period, and the church in which the slab was noted is part of that monastic complex. The island sits in the tidal reaches of the Shannon near Killadysert, accessible only by water.

Anyone hoping to locate the slab should be prepared for the possibility that it remains elusive. The ruins are open to the elements and the floor levels within roofless medieval churches shift over time as vegetation and rubble accumulate. Looking carefully along the central axis of the nave, and paying attention to any flat stones that might retain traces of carved lettering along their margins, gives the best chance of finding what Westropp described more than a century ago.