The stone is not where it began its life. Sometime in the nineteenth century it was lifted from its original setting and pressed into secondary service as a graveslab, a fate that was not uncommon for worked stone in Irish churchyards, where older decorative pieces were quietly recycled as burial markers when the practical need arose.

What makes the slab particularly interesting is the close resemblance its carved decoration bears to the central panel on the south side of the White composite altar-tomb in nearby St. Patrickswell. That tomb, a chest tomb with multiple carved panels assembled together, was erected in 1623, though the version visible today reflects a reconstruction carried out in the 1970s. The stylistic similarity between the two pieces raises the possibility that both came from the same workshop tradition, or even the same hands, working in the early seventeenth century in this part of Tipperary. Whether the Burgagery-Lands slab was once part of a comparable altar-tomb, or served an entirely different original function, is not certain, but the carving quality and the shared decorative vocabulary suggest it belongs to the same moment of regional stone craft.