The site contains not just St Mary's Well and the surrounding burial ground, but also the foundations of a church, an ecclesiastical enclosure, and what appears to be a separate circular enclosure lying just outside the graveyard to the south-east. Each of these elements belongs to a different moment in the long use of this hillside, and they sit together on a north-east-facing slope above the Slaney valley in a way that rewards careful attention.

The graveyard itself is a trapezoidal shape, roughly 110 metres from east to west and between 25 and 35 metres from north to south, defined by a stone-faced earthen bank of the kind commonly used to mark out early ecclesiastical sites in Ireland. Church foundations occupy the eastern end, positioned within an ecclesiastical enclosure, which is a formally bounded area associated with an early Christian foundation, often predating any standing stonework by several centuries. St Mary's Well sits at the centre of the graveyard rather than at its edge, which is the more typical location for a holy well, a natural spring attributed with sacred or healing properties and frequently associated with a local saint. The circular enclosure to the south-east is probably entirely separate from the graveyard, and its relationship to the other elements of the site is not entirely resolved, though such enclosures are often the earliest surviving trace of organised activity at a place.