Look more closely at the boundary, though, and something older begins to suggest itself. Along the southern and western sides, the graveyard wall follows a distinctly curvilinear line, curving in a way that straight-sided, post-medieval enclosures rarely do. That curve is a known signature of Early Christian ecclesiastical enclosures, the roughly circular or oval boundaries that defined sacred space in Ireland from roughly the sixth century onwards, long before the formal parish system imposed its geometry on the landscape.

The possibility that an Early Christian enclosure underlies the present graveyard was noted by scholar L. Swan in 1988, and the physical evidence is still readable in the wall's arc today. What makes the site more layered still is its immediate neighbour: a motte and bailey castle lies just fifty metres to the east. A motte and bailey is a form of fortification introduced by the Normans after their arrival in Ireland in the twelfth century, typically consisting of a raised earthen mound topped by a timber tower, with an adjacent enclosed courtyard. The proximity of that castle to what may be a much earlier Christian site is unlikely to be coincidental. Ecclesiastical centres tended to attract settlement, and Norman lords frequently established their strongholds in relation to existing places of significance, whether for practical or symbolic reasons. The post-medieval memorials within the graveyard suggest the site continued to serve its community across several centuries, quietly accumulating layers.