That rising ground level is not geological; it is the weight of the dead. So many burials have taken place within the walls that the interior floor has climbed steadily upward, bringing headstones, some dating to 1779, into an unusually intimate relationship with the surviving stonework. The lower half of a pointed stone arch sits below the current ground surface, a detail that quietly reframes how old a place really is.

The church served the parish of Killanully, and its history is one of repeated decline. It was already described as ruinous in 1615, yet records show it had been repaired by 1639, only to be roofless once more by 1699. What stands today is a rectangular structure measuring roughly 17 metres east to west and just under 5 metres wide internally, with ivy covering much of the masonry. The upper part of the east gable has collapsed, taking the ends of both the north and south walls with it. A central east window once had a mullion, the vertical dividing bar of stone, but that is gone; the rectangular light remains as an open frame. Higher on the west gable, a window with an ogee-headed light, meaning an arch with a gentle double curve, survives in better condition. A small ruined structure outside the north wall, roughly 5 by 3 metres, is thought to have been the vestry. Near the south doorway is the grave of the Reverend Florence McCarthy, who died in 1805, and the site has a tradition of devotional rounds being made at his grave, a form of ritual circumambulation associated with holy wells and venerated burial sites in Irish folk practice.