In Irish placename tradition, "Kil" derives from "cill", meaning a church or monastic cell, and Corney likely refers to a personal name associated with an early Christian founder or saint. That combination points to a site of some antiquity, one where a formal religious enclosure once defined the boundaries of sacred space in the early medieval Irish church.

Ecclesiastical enclosures of this type were a characteristic feature of early Christian Ireland, roughly from the fifth century onwards. They typically took the form of a roughly circular or oval boundary, marked by an earthen bank, a ditch, or a combination of both, which set apart the consecrated ground of a monastery or church from the surrounding landscape. Within such enclosures one might find a church building, a burial ground, perhaps a round tower or the remains of ancillary structures used by monks or clergy. The enclosure at Kilcorney belongs to this tradition, representing a category of monument that survives in various states of preservation across Clare and the wider west of Ireland, where early monastic activity was particularly dense.