The enclosure that contains it is a roughly D-shaped earthwork, about 48 metres by 42 metres, defined by a grass-covered earthen bank that also serves as the townland boundary with Nethertown. One solitary headstone marks the grave of a sailor from the brig 'William' of Weymouth, which went down in 1818. Most of the others buried here left no marker at all.

The enclosure almost certainly predates its use as a burial ground. Excavation established that the earthen bank was originally stone-faced on its western side, and was accompanied by a shallow outer fosse, a ditch running alongside it, suggesting early medieval origins. St. Vogue's church stood inside it, along with a late medieval house. Burials only began here after both structures were abandoned, and the ground appears to have been set aside specifically for drowned mariners, the victims of the notoriously treacherous waters off Carnsore Point. Local tradition, recorded by Walsh in the 1920s, associates the graveyard with at least four known shipwrecks: the 'William' in 1818, the 'Ceres' in 1866, the 'Langdale' in 1879, and the 'Sem', a Hungarian vessel lost in 1884. Seventeen burials were excavated in the northern part of the enclosure; ten more, mostly infants, were found inside the church itself. One adult burial within the church walls is thought to pre-date the earliest structure on the site, suggesting human activity here stretching back further than the standing archaeology alone would indicate.

The enclosure's original entrance has not been identified, though it is thought to have been on the eastern side, where a north-south farm track now runs. Old farm buildings press against the south-eastern perimeter, giving the site a quietly enclosed quality that sits oddly alongside its history as a landing place for the sea's dead.