In fact, the square three-storey structure was added against the gable wall and flanked by lean-to extensions that continue the roofline on either side, creating the impression that the tower was always integral to the fabric of the church. It is a small architectural sleight of hand, and one that rewards a second look.

The Church of Ireland parish church of Aghada was built in 1817 on a new site, replacing an earlier eighteenth-century church that stood in an ancient graveyard roughly 300 metres to the south-east. The move to a fresh location was not unusual for the period; congregations and their patrons sometimes preferred to build anew rather than maintain older structures on inconvenient or decayed ground. The 1817 building has a rectangular nave with a hipped roof at the east end, and its original pointed window openings have since been blocked, with smaller lights inserted in their place. Late nineteenth-century renovations brought further changes to the interior, most notably the removal of the old galleries and the installation of an open pitch pine ceiling, a detail recorded by Cole in 1903. Pitch pine, a dense and resinous timber imported in quantity during the Victorian period, was a popular choice for church interiors at the time, valued for its durability and the warm tone it lent to otherwise plain spaces. The rectangular graveyard that surrounds the church contains inscribed headstones dating from the late nineteenth century. The building is now used as a Presbyterian church, a denominational shift that adds another quiet layer to its already layered history.