The problem is that it probably never was one. Researchers working the area have concluded it was more likely a house site, with a genuine probable church identified separately, around 200 metres to the north.

The building itself is almost perfectly square, measuring 7.1 metres on each side, with walls still standing to a height of 2.8 metres and nearly three-quarters of a metre thick, constructed from stone and mortar and plastered on the interior. It is orientated northeast to southwest rather than the conventional east-west alignment typical of Christian ecclesiastical buildings, which is one of the details that raises questions about its original purpose. On the southeast side there is an entrance 1.4 metres wide, fronted by a small porch-like projection roughly 2 metres in length, and a single window, 0.6 metres wide, opens on the northeast wall. The 1838 Ordnance Survey map designation has given it a religious identity it may never have had, a reminder that early cartographers sometimes applied convenient labels to structures that resisted easy categorisation. D. Lavelle's archaeological survey of Ballinrobe and district, published in 1994 by the Lough Mask and Lough Carra Tourist Development Association, documented it with appropriate scepticism, recording the features carefully while leaving the question of function open.