But the curve of its boundary wall tells a different story. That distinctive D-shape, a characteristic signature of Early Christian ecclesiastical enclosures, suggests that long before the post-medieval wall was built, this ground was already set apart and bounded, most likely as a monastic or church site from Ireland's early medieval period. Inside the wall, traces of a low earthen bank, now largely reduced to a scarp, run along the northern and eastern sections, and there are indications of an external fosse, a defensive or boundary ditch, that has since been filled in. These features, subtle and easy to miss underfoot, are what remain of a much older enclosed sacred landscape.

The site clusters several layers of history in a relatively small area. The ruins of a medieval church stand in the northern quadrant of the graveyard, and within its fabric is a possible sandstone carved head thought to date from the twelfth century. Carved heads, found at a number of Irish ecclesiastical sites, are stone carvings whose precise function remains debated, sometimes associated with pre-Christian traditions absorbed into early church contexts. Just outside the north-western corner of the graveyard wall lies a possible holy well associated with St Finnian, a saint connected with several significant early Irish monasteries. To the east, a low linear earthwork visible on aerial photographs may be the remnant of an old trackway linking the graveyard to Noughaval House. Immediately to the south, a circular enclosure visible from the air on 2005 OSI photographs has been interpreted as a possible ring-barrow, a low prehistoric burial mound, suggesting the site's sacred character may predate the Christian period entirely. A carved head kept in a shed at Noughaval House was once considered to be of Early Christian date, but closer examination suggests it is likely post-medieval, possibly connected with the house itself rather than with the early church.