The site appears in the historical record as Laraghlawe, Templenalawe, Lathrachlanii, and several variant spellings beside, a proliferation of names that reflects both the instability of medieval Latin transcription and the successive layers of Norman and Gaelic administration that shaped this corner of Limerick.

The antiquarian Thomas Westropp, writing in 1904 to 1905, pulled together the documentary threads. The site can be identified with a Lathrachlanii mentioned as early as 1185 in the Charter of Magio, placing it in proximity to Emlygrenan. By 1302 to 1303, the advowson of the chapel, that is, the right to appoint its clergy, a valuable legal and economic privilege in medieval Ireland, was the subject of a suit between the Abbot of Magio and one R. de Kylsynyghe, recorded in the Calendar of Memoranda Rolls. A separate plea from the reign of Edward I shows an Alicia de Rupe claiming the place against Peter le Botiller. Later still, in 1559, a clerk named Mauric MicBryan held the Chapel of Lathreclay under papal provision, suggesting continued ecclesiastical significance well into the post-medieval period. Westropp also noted that the ruin sits not far to the north of the Port of Dunglare, a place identified with the Claire of the Book of Rights, a text that predates the year 900, which places this landscape within a very old geographical imagination.

The church is a ruin, and visitors should expect little in the way of standing fabric. The site is associated with a holy well dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, these twin dedications being common at early Irish sites and sometimes indicating a connection to pre-Norman ecclesiastical foundations. Holy wells in Ireland were often gathering points for local devotion long after the churches beside them fell into disuse, and it is worth looking for the well in the vicinity of the ruins. The approach to Glenlary is rural, and as with many such sites in County Limerick, access may depend on following field boundaries or local tracks. The ground around ruined churches of this age tends to be uneven, and the area is likely to be at its most navigable in late spring or early summer before vegetation thickens.