That choice was almost certainly deliberate. The structure, measuring roughly ten metres by four and a half, is built from unmortared horizontal slabs, its door set at the western end of the north wall rather than the more conventional west-facing entrance. Part of the east wall has since collapsed outward, leaving the interior exposed to the elements, but enough survives to read the building clearly as a nave and chancel church, small and plainly constructed.

The most likely explanation for both the location and the building method is that this was a penal chapel, erected during the period when Catholic worship was suppressed under the Penal Laws, the body of legislation that restricted Catholic religious practice in Ireland from the late seventeenth century into the nineteenth. Congregations during that era sometimes gathered in remote or concealed spots, making use of whatever natural shelter presented itself. Here, the gully provided that shelter, and the dry-stone construction of unmortared slabs would have required no specialist labour or materials that might attract attention. Close by, natural caves in the headland may have served as souterrains, underground passages sometimes used for storage or concealment, though whether that function was deliberate or incidental here is unclear. Around 150 metres to the west lies a holy well, a feature that appears frequently alongside early and vernacular religious sites in Ireland and suggests the headland carried some devotional significance beyond the chapel itself.