The word likely derives from the Irish, pointing to an early Christian foundation, and somewhere within the townland the remains of a church mark that founding impulse, even if the structure itself has long since fallen into ruin or near-invisibility.

Early medieval Ireland was densely populated with small churches, many of them little more than a single rectangular cell of dry-laid or mortared stone, serving a local community or monastic satellite. Over centuries, such buildings were abandoned, absorbed into field boundaries, or reduced to a scatter of dressed stone. What survives at Owning is recorded as a church monument, placing it within a tradition that stretches back to the early Christian period, when the landscape of Kilkenny was being organised around ecclesiastical settlements that would shape parish boundaries lasting into the present day. Without more detailed survey information currently available, the precise form of the structure, its dedication, and its building phases remain difficult to pin down with confidence.