Founded in 1178 as a daughter house of Boyle Abbey, this religious community endured for centuries before meeting its decline. The monastery suffered a devastating raid in 1398 when Niall Óg O'Neill plundered its treasures, and it was finally suppressed during the religious upheavals of the late 16th century.

Today, visitors to the site will find only fragments of the original church structure. The most substantial remains consist of an ivy-covered section of the south wall and west gable, rising approximately 9 metres high. These walls, constructed from rubble and split stone with sandstone dressings, now serve a dual purpose; the south wall forms the boundary of the modern graveyard, whilst sheds have been built against its exterior face. The surviving architecture reveals the church's original dimensions, with an internal width of 8.39 metres, and features such as a splayed window opening in the upper section of the west gable hint at its medieval grandeur.

Scattered throughout the cemetery grounds lie numerous moulded stone fragments dating from the late 12th to early 13th centuries, silent witnesses to the abbey's former architectural sophistication. During the 19th century, when Dr. D. MacGettigan, Catholic Bishop of Raphoe from 1861 to 1870, oversaw the construction of new graveyard walls, several significant pieces were incorporated into the masonry. Among these rescued elements are three carved capitals and a piece of cusped tracery, preserving these medieval treasures within the fabric of the later walls. These architectural fragments, alongside those found on nearby Abbey Island, offer tantalising glimpses of the artistic achievement that once characterised this important monastic site.