The element "bally" derives from the Irish baile, meaning a townland or settlement, while "hale" is thought to relate to a personal name or early church founder, suggesting that religious activity here predates any surviving structure by some considerable margin. That a church is recorded here at all points to a site with likely medieval origins, even if the fabric visible today may belong to a later period of construction or ruin.

Mediaeval parish churches in Kilkenny were often modest rubble-built structures serving rural communities, sometimes replacing even earlier timber or drystone oratories associated with the early Christian period. Many were abandoned following the consolidation of parishes in the post-Reformation centuries, left to decay in their graveyards while new Church of Ireland or Catholic buildings were erected elsewhere in the parish. Without more detailed documentation it is difficult to say precisely when the Ballyhale church was built, by whom it was patronised, or at what point it fell out of use, but its classification as a monument places it within a long tradition of such sites across the Kilkenny landscape.