The name itself carries ecclesiastical weight, derived from the Irish "Cill", meaning a church or monastic cell, pointing to an early Christian foundation somewhere in this corner of Kerry. Yet the site remains, for the moment, largely undocumented in the public record, its details unverified and its history difficult to pin down with any confidence.

Kilfenora as a placename is perhaps best known in County Clare, where a celebrated early medieval cathedral and a remarkable collection of High Crosses have made it a place of some scholarly attention. The Kerry Kilfenora is a quieter matter entirely. The "kil" prefix appears throughout Irish townland names and nearly always signals an early church site, often associated with a founding saint whose name has since blurred or been lost. These small foundations, sometimes little more than a rectangular enclosure with a simple oratory, formed the basic units of Christian organisation across early medieval Ireland, and many have left only their names and a scatter of worked stone behind.