The walled enclosure, roughly 75 metres east to west and 55 metres north to south, contains a level central area that sits noticeably higher than its surroundings, defined by a low scarp, a kind of earthen step, running east to west through the southern half of the ground. It is the sort of feature that takes a moment to register underfoot before it starts to raise questions about what lies beneath.

The site clusters several layers of history within a compact space. A ruined medieval church occupies the western half of the enclosure, and beside it stands a cross-slab, a flat stone carved with a cross, a form of early Christian grave-marker common across Ireland. The greatest concentration of burials is around and within the church itself, and immediately to its north are low, uninscribed stone markers of the kind that predate the more elaborate 19th and 20th century headstones that dominate elsewhere in the ground. Some of those later graves are enclosed within low concrete surrounds, and there are also a small number of table-tombs and chest-tombs, raised rectangular stone structures that were once a way of marking higher-status burials. Yew trees grow at the centre of the enclosure; yew has been associated with burial grounds in Ireland and Britain since early medieval times, partly for its longevity and partly for older symbolic reasons that are now only partially recoverable. Beech trees, planted in the 19th century, line the perimeter wall. The graveyard has since been extended westward through two breaks in the western wall, adding a further walled section that takes in gently rising ground.

About 30 metres to the north-east of the main enclosure, just outside its boundary, lie a holy well and a saint's stone. Holy wells are found throughout Ireland, often associated with a local or early medieval saint and historically visited for healing or blessing, while a saint's stone typically refers to a boulder or flat stone bearing some connection, legendary or liturgical, to a named holy figure. Together with the cross-slab and the ruined church, they suggest that Kilmacowen was once a place of some religious significance, though the precise dedication and history of that earlier community have not been fully preserved.