The place-name Kilkeasy derives from the Irish Cill Céise, meaning the church of Céise, a reference to an early Christian founder whose identity has largely slipped from the record. That pattern, a saint's name embedded in a townland, a church long since ruined or absorbed into the landscape, is common enough across Ireland, but no less worth pausing over for that.

Kilkeasy sits in a part of Kilkenny that was densely settled in the medieval period, with ecclesiastical foundations, tower houses, and earthworks scattered across the surrounding parishes. Early church sites in this region often began as simple enclosures associated with a named holy figure, sometimes pre-Norman in origin, and were later developed or abandoned as the geography of parish organisation shifted under Anglo-Norman influence from the twelfth century onwards. Without more detailed fieldwork documentation available, the precise form and date of the Kilkeasy church remain difficult to characterise, though the survival of the dedication suggests the site held some local significance across a long stretch of time.