The designation rests almost entirely on a single scholarly suggestion made over a century ago, and what survives on the ground tells a more ambiguous, quietly compelling story.

The idea of an ecclesiastical presence here traces back to the antiquarian Thomas Johnson Westropp, who in 1914 raised the possibility that a church and monastic settlement may once have stood within the promontory fort that dominates the site. A promontory fort uses the natural defensive advantage of a headland, cutting it off from the mainland with an earthen or stone rampart across the neck of land. Westropp's speculation was enough to earn the site a formal listing as ecclesiastical remains in both the Sites and Monuments Record of 1991 and the Record of Monuments and Places in 1997. Inside the promontory fort sits a rath, a roughly circular enclosure typically of early medieval date, and within that rath several features have been positively identified: a children's burial ground, a bullaun stone, and a hut site. Bullaun stones are boulders or rocks with one or more smooth circular depressions worn or carved into them, and they are frequently associated with early Christian activity in Ireland. The hut site and the children's burial ground, known in Irish tradition as a cillín, add to a picture of long, layered use. Yet the church itself remains unconfirmed, a possibility suspended in the archaeological record rather than a presence anchored in stone.