That density of layered occupation, each element sitting quietly alongside the others in open grassland, is what makes Ballysheehan quietly arresting. The graveyard itself is substantial, measuring approximately 74 metres north to south and 45 metres east to west, and it slopes gently uphill toward its northern end, where the fortified church occupies the high point of the enclosure.

The motte and bailey to the south, some 80 metres from the graveyard entrance, is the kind of earthwork introduced to Ireland following the Anglo-Norman arrival in the twelfth century: a raised mound, or motte, topped by a timber tower, with an adjoining enclosed yard, or bailey, at its base. That such an earthwork sits so close to a fortified church and a deserted medieval village suggests Ballysheehan was once a place of some local significance, a small community organised around defence, worship, and agriculture, before it was abandoned. The deserted village lies about 110 metres to the east, its buildings long since reduced to the faint surface traces that only careful ground-level observation or aerial photography tends to reveal. The stream running 20 metres to the west of the graveyard, with the ground falling away steeply toward it, would have been a practical asset to whoever settled this low ridge.

Within the graveyard, the memorials are concentrated to the west, south, and east of the church, and most date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A coffin stand stands near the entrance gate to the south, a simple stone or timber platform once used to rest a coffin during a funeral procession, common in Irish rural graveyards of the period. The ridge's elevation means the site commands clear views in all directions, which may explain why people chose it, and kept choosing it, across so many centuries.