Circular enclosures of this kind are often the footprint of early medieval monasteries, the original boundary of a sacred precinct preserved across centuries in the curve of a field boundary or a cemetery wall. Here, the medieval church site occupies the centre of that circle, almost certainly sitting on the ground where a seventh-century monastery once stood.

The monastery was founded by St Moshagra, a figure who appears in the sources under several variant spellings, including Moagra, Momhagra, and Tagra. He was the son of Seanán of the Dál Meisin Corb, and his feast day falls on the 3rd of March. What is quietly remarkable about Moshagra is the reach of his ecclesiastical connections. He is recorded as patron of the church at Clonenagh in Co. Laois, the church at Killynee in Co. Wicklow, and the church of Tomhaggard in Co. Wexford, whose Irish name, Teach Moshagra, translates directly as the house of Moshagra. He was also one of the signatories of the cáin of Adhamhnán, a form of church law or ecclesiastical tax associated with the late seventh century, and he is noted as having attended the Synod of Flan Fabhla, Archbishop of Armagh, in 697. That a single abbatial figure from a village near Tallaght was connected to Glendalough, Laois, Wicklow, and Wexford, and present at a significant ecclesiastical gathering, suggests a prominence that the quiet setting of Saggart today does little to advertise.

The site is located in the centre of Saggart village, and the graveyard remains in use, so access is straightforward. The medieval church itself no longer stands as a substantial structure, but the enclosure and its shape repay attention. Visitors with an interest in early Christian Ireland might look at the overall form of the graveyard boundary as they walk it, noting how the curve holds its logic even after more than a thousand years. The associations with Clonenagh and Tomhaggard give the place a kind of geographical depth; a saint whose name is embedded in place names from Dublin to Wexford left his earliest foundation here, beside what is now the N81.