The location is Murher, known in Old Irish as Mag nAirthir, meaning something close to "the eastern plain," and its ecclesiastical origins are old enough to have been recorded in an eighth-century source.

The reference comes from the Genealogy of the Ciarraige, a text concerned with the ruling dynasties of the Ciarraige people, who held territory across parts of what is now County Kerry. The Ciarraige Luachra were a branch of this grouping associated with the northern reaches of the region, and it is within their lands that Mag nAirthir is placed. According to the genealogy, the church there was founded by a Bishop Fáelán, himself a member of the local ruling family. That detail is worth pausing on. In early Christian Ireland, it was not unusual for monasteries and church sites to be founded by, and remain closely tied to, local aristocratic dynasties. The founding bishop being drawn from the very dynasty that held the surrounding territory reflects how deeply ecclesiastical and political authority were intertwined in this period. Beyond the name, the founding figure, and the broad tribal territory, the written record does not elaborate further on what stood at Murher or what became of it.