That combination, of formal recognition and near-total obscurity, is itself a kind of curiosity. Many sites across Ireland occupy this strange middle ground: known to exist, mapped and catalogued, but not yet described in any accessible detail.

The place-name offers a small clue. Newvillage is the sort of anglicised townland name that often masks a more complex settlement history, and the presence of a church, however ruined or reduced, suggests a community once gathered here with enough permanence to warrant a place of worship. Churches of this kind in the west of Ireland range from early medieval foundations, sometimes little more than a rough stone rectangle in a field, to post-medieval structures built to serve the needs of a changing parish landscape. Without more specific detail, it is not possible to say which this one is, or what survives above ground.