That wall, unremarkable in itself, follows a tellingly oval outline, and it is the shape that gives the site away. Beneath and beyond it, the ground holds something older: a low, wide bank running along the north and north-east sides, just outside the present boundary, which appears to be the remnant of an earlier ecclesiastical enclosure. These oval enclosures, a characteristic feature of early Christian monastic sites in Ireland, were the defining boundaries of religious communities, marking sacred ground from secular. The fact that a post-medieval wall so faithfully replicates the curve of what came before suggests the older boundary never entirely lost its authority in the local landscape.

The church here was dedicated to St. Lonán, whose feast day fell on the 12th of November, and the medieval parish church and graveyard may overlie the site of an early Christian monastery he founded. Researcher Swan noted the significance of the oval shape as early as 1988, identifying it as possible evidence of that original enclosure. The wider setting adds further historical density: a tower house lies roughly 630 metres to the east, and a motte castle, the earthwork raised by a Norman lord to command the surrounding territory, sits about 320 metres to the south-south-west. The ground around the graveyard is crossed with earthworks, though most appear to be old drainage channels or field boundaries of uncertain date rather than monastic features. The land itself is poorly drained, reclaimed ground, which perhaps explains why the slight rise marking the old enclosure has survived at all, too marginal to be ploughed away.