The building is recorded as a monument of interest, which places it in the company of structures considered to have architectural, historical, or archaeological significance, though the specifics of what makes this particular church notable remain frustratingly elusive.

The townland name itself offers a small clue to the character of the place. Garraunbaun derives from the Irish, suggesting a white or pale thicket, the kind of scrubby woodland typical of the west Galway interior. Catholic churches built in rural Connemara during the nineteenth century were often modest structures, constructed in the decades following Emancipation when congregations could finally build openly. Many were put up quickly and cheaply, later replaced or altered as parish fortunes changed, which is part of why earlier fabric sometimes survives embedded within later renovations, easy to overlook.