Water rather than wall marks the western and northern limits of this burial ground, so that at high tide the graves nearest the inlet appear to float just above the waterline. The graveyard wraps entirely around a 15th-century Dominican friary, occupying not only the slopes of the low hill on which the friary stands but the interior of the building itself, where headstones and graveslabs crowd the nave, the cloister, and the east range.

The story of how the graveyard came to take this unusual shape can be traced through old maps. On the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1838, the burial ground was a modest, roughly rectangular walled enclosure running along the east side of the friary only. By the 1920 edition it had expanded to fully surround the medieval complex, pushing outward until the channel itself became its western and northern boundary. The oldest burial monument surviving within the site is a chest tomb, a rectangular stone box-like structure raised above ground level, dated to 1623 and positioned in an altar recess in the south chapel of the church. The majority of 19th-century graveslabs and headstones are concentrated to the east, within the church interior and around the cloister, while the graves to the south, west, and north of the friary are largely early 20th century. Inside the nave stands a cross commemorating Father Manus Sweeney, a Dominican who participated in the 1798 rebellion and was hanged in the nearby town of Newport the following year.

The graveyard remains in active use, though burials are now restricted to existing family plots. Entering through the metal gate at the northeast, a visitor moves from open ground into a space where the chronological layers of burial are almost geographic, older stones to the east within the ruined walls, newer ones spreading outward to where the grass meets the water.