But there is a reasonable case to be made that it represents only one corner of something considerably older and larger: a roughly circular ecclesiastical enclosure of the kind that typically marks the earliest Christian settlements in Ireland. These enclosures, sometimes called a cashel or ráith depending on their construction material and origin, were established around early medieval churches to define sacred space and offer a degree of physical protection to the community within.

Killanin and Duignan, writing in 1967, described the church at Whitechurch as being surrounded by an ancient, circular enclosure. The present stone-walled graveyard is thought to form the south-western quadrant of what was once a larger, roughly circular boundary. That the rest of it has not simply vanished is suggested by aerial photography: a photograph taken on 19 July 1970 shows faint traces of the possible enclosure on the north side of the road, directly opposite the church. Cropmarks and soil disturbances of this kind, invisible at ground level, occasionally reveal themselves from the air when conditions are right, offering a ghostly outline of boundaries long since ploughed out or built over.

The site rewards the attentive visitor who knows what to look for. Standing at the graveyard and facing the road, the curvature of the existing wall gives some sense of how a larger circle might once have swept around. The field on the opposite side of the road is where the aerial evidence appears, though nothing obvious marks the spot today.