What makes this site quietly compelling is the layering of its grave-markers, some carrying incised crosses, others entirely blank, low sandstone lumps rising barely thirty centimetres from the ground, occasionally distinguished by a small concave depression notched into the top. Thirty-eight headstones within the graveyard carry no name at all, and twenty-four further markers are similarly anonymous. The older burials cluster to the south of the ruined church, the more recent ones to the north, an informal but legible geography of time.

The church, known locally as Ballywiheen Church or Teampall Bhaile Bhoithín, was probably the parish church of Marhin, and a Royal Visitation record from 1615 noted it was still in repair at that date. Eight cross-inscribed slabs survive in the graveyard, five of them marking the ends of graves, the remaining three positioned near the church walls. A stone font was also recorded inside the ruin, though a 2007 survey by Karen Buckley and Laurence Dunne found no trace of it, possibly because the interior had become heavily overgrown. One cross slab, previously documented separately, was by that point standing loose within the east window embrasure. Among the named burials, the earliest recorded is that of Mary Kennedy of Clounties, who died on 16th May 1869, aged twenty-five. Roughly seventy-five metres to the southwest, in the adjacent townland of Ballywiheen, lies Reilig an Draghbháil, a calluragh burial ground, that is, a site traditionally used for the interment of unbaptised infants and others excluded from consecrated ground.

The graveyard is set back about two hundred metres from the Ventry to Ballyferriter road, enclosed by low drystone walls of local sandstone, around 1.1 metres high, capped with flat slabs. The entrance is marked by a pair of modern galvanised gates between concrete piers. Smerwick Harbour is visible to the north, and Cruach Mhárthain to the west-southwest.