What gives it its particular character is the combination of a clear founding moment and a relatively late act of reinvention, both tied to one of the most prominent Anglo-Irish dynasties in the region.

The church was built in the 1770s by the Barrymore family, whose seat was Castlelyons Castle a short distance away. The Barrymores were Earls of Barrymore, a title with deep roots in Cork going back to the medieval period, and their patronage of a local church in this era was consistent with the role landed Protestant families played in maintaining Church of Ireland infrastructure across rural Ireland. The building they put up did not remain in its original form for long, in historical terms. In 1899 it was, according to an early twentieth-century source, completely renovated and restored, suggesting it had either fallen into disrepair or that Victorian-era tastes prompted a more thorough remodelling. It continued in use after that restoration but closed in the early 1960s, a fate shared by many rural Church of Ireland churches as congregations shrank in the decades following Irish independence.