Set on the north-west side of an irregularly shaped graveyard in flat, rough scrubland about ninety metres from the Beagh River, the building was found in 1982 to be densely overgrown, yet remarkably intact beneath the vegetation. What makes it particularly interesting is that it was not simply built and then abandoned. It was built, and then rebuilt, and the evidence for both episodes has survived in the masonry.

The original structure, more than eleven metres long and five and a half metres wide, dates to the 15th or 16th century. The quality of construction is a clue to this: well-coursed limestone blocks, finely dressed alternating quoins at the corners (the interlocking corner-stones that give a wall its strength and finish), and a doorway in the south wall with chamfered jambs, meaning the stone was cut at an angle on both the inner and outer faces to give a refined, bevelled edge. At some later point, probably in the late 16th or early 17th century, the original east gable was demolished and the church was extended a further 6.35 metres eastward. The extension is identifiable by its noticeably smaller stonework. A single-light window with a triangular head survives in the new east gable, while a cruder ogee-headed window, its arch formed in a shallow S-curve, was inserted into the extended portion of the south wall. Internal modifications followed too: the foundations of a dividing wall at the western end suggest the interior was at some point partitioned, and two external buttresses were added to the south wall for structural support.

In the early 1990s, the site was cleared and conserved as part of a FÁS community employment scheme. The mortar joints were re-pointed, a gap in the north wall was repaired, and a new buttress was added to stabilise the west gable. The church as it stands today is therefore a layered object, carrying the marks of medieval craftsmanship, post-Reformation alteration, and twentieth-century repair all at once.