No walls, no outline, no foundation stones. The 1842 Ordnance Survey six-inch map records a small rectangular building aligned southwest to northeast, sitting in the middle of the burial ground, but by the late nineteenth century it had been taken down and the ground closed over it entirely, leaving a churchyard without a church.

The site itself is considerably older than the building that disappeared. Desertmore, as the parish was known, is considered a well-attested early ecclesiastical site, probably a hermitage in origin, the word "desert" here deriving from the Irish "díseart", a term for a secluded religious retreat often associated with early Christian ascetic practice. That ancient continuity makes the more recent history feel somewhat abrupt. The Church of Ireland erected a parish church on the site in 1815, described at the time by Samuel Lewis in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland as "a plain modern building", which suggests it made little impression even when it was standing. It was taken down in 1872 when the parish of Desertmore was united with Athnowen. The graveyard, meanwhile, had functioned for at least two centuries as a Protestant burial ground, while the Roman Catholic families of the parish were buried separately at Kilcrea. There is also a local tradition of a burial ground just outside the north wall of the churchyard, a detail that adds a further, less documented layer to what is already a quietly complicated place.