It marks the resting place of William Massey, MP for Swords, who died in 1777. That a single eighteenth-century parliamentarian should be the sole named occupant of a site almost certainly far older than any parliamentary record is one of those quiet ironies that old Irish burial grounds tend to accumulate without fanfare.

The site itself is a raised oval platform, aligned east to west and measuring roughly 27 metres long by 22 metres wide, standing between 1.4 and 1.8 metres above the surrounding ground. A modern wall now encloses it, though this appears to have replaced an earlier earthen enclosure, the kind of curvilinear boundary commonly associated with early ecclesiastical foundations. Towards the western end, a rectangular sunken feature, also aligned east to west and measuring approximately 8 by 7 metres, is likely the collapsed footprint of a church. This form of raised, oval, enclosed graveyard containing the ghost of a small rectangular church is a recognisable type across Ireland, often indicating a site of considerable antiquity. The graveyard has not been used for active burials in some time, and local historian Peadar Bates is credited with identifying the Massey stone, a detail recorded by Healy in 1975.

The site sits immediately north of the Malahide estuary, which gives some sense of its setting, though reaching it requires attention. The graveyard is heavily overgrown, and without knowing what you are looking for, the raised platform might read simply as a mound of vegetation. The sunken church outline towards the western end is the detail worth seeking out once you are inside the enclosure. The single visible gravestone, that of William Massey, is the one readable marker in what is otherwise a largely anonymous and untended space. Visiting in late winter or early spring, before the growth thickens further, would make the earthwork topography considerably easier to read.