No ruin is described, no founder named, no date offered. It exists in the archaeological record as a category and a location, little more, which in its own quiet way says something about how many layers of religious activity the Irish landscape contains that have yet to be properly examined or documented.

Ireland's early medieval church left traces across the country in the form of enclosures, burial grounds, the foundations of small oratories, and the occasional carved stone. These sites are often identified by placename evidence, the survival of a circular field boundary, or a local tradition of the ground being holy. Dookinelly itself sits in the west of Mayo, a part of Ireland where early Christian communities established themselves in notably remote locations, sometimes on islands, sometimes on exposed headlands, sometimes simply in the middle of farmland that has since absorbed whatever stood there. Without more specific documentation, it is not possible to say which kind of site this is, how much survives above ground, or whether any structural remains are visible at all.