The area, roughly 26 metres north to south and 24 metres east to west, is only partially enclosed by a field fence, and yet within it stand many grave markers, quietly occupying land that has otherwise returned to ordinary agricultural use. That combination, a burial ground absorbed back into working farmland, with headstones still visible among the grass, is a familiar but still quietly unsettling feature of the Irish countryside.

Burial grounds of this kind often predate the formal parochial cemetery system that became standard after the nineteenth century, and some are associated with earlier ecclesiastical sites, suppressed parishes, or simply with long local tradition. The irregular shape of the enclosure at Cappaghglass, and the fact that it sits slightly proud of the surrounding slope, suggests the ground may have been in use for a considerable period, gradual accumulation of burials being one reason such sites tend to rise above the field level around them. The partial field fence running from the north-west toward the east-south-east marks out the space without fully defining it, giving the site an ambiguous quality, neither fully consecrated enclosure nor entirely reclaimed land.