In Irish, the word "killeen" most commonly refers to a small unconsecrated burial ground, often used for unbaptised infants or others excluded from the rites of the established church. The presence of a formal church monument recorded at this location in County Kerry adds a quiet complexity to that already layered etymology, suggesting a site where organised ecclesiastical life and older, more marginal devotional practices may once have overlapped.

Church sites in Kerry frequently trace their origins to the early medieval period, when small monastic communities and the cells of itinerant clergy left their mark across the landscape in the form of ruined oratories, enclosures, and graveyards. Many such foundations were modest to begin with and became further reduced over centuries of abandonment, land clearance, and the slow reclamation of stone for other purposes. The townland name itself points to a probable history of burial use that predates or outlasted whatever formal structure once stood here, though the precise character, date, and condition of the church at Killeens remains to be fully documented.