What makes the arrangement quietly odd is that one half of it appears, to all outward appearances, to be a graveyard in name only: the easternmost enclosure, roughly forty by forty-five metres, is today entirely devoid of burial markers, an expanse of empty ground that nonetheless carries the formal outline of a burial space.

The ruins of the medieval parish church of Aglishdrinagh occupy the western graveyard, and it is here that the most conspicuous monument stands. A large burial vault sits at approximately the east end of the old church, capped by a table tomb inscribed to Henry Harrison of Castle Harrison. The vault carries a date of 1811, but James Grove White, writing in his multi-volume study of Cork parishes between 1905 and 1925, noted that it was actually constructed by William Harrison in the early eighteenth century, making the inscribed date something of a later addition or rededication. The vault is now ringed by further Harrison family burials in railed plots, giving that corner of the graveyard the feel of a private dynastic enclosure. Grove White also recorded that the rest of the burial ground was used by only a very small number of other families, the most notable being the Harold-Barrys of Ballyvonare. The eastern enclosure itself adds another layer of ambiguity: Grove White attributed its creation to the Harrison family enclosing an additional space of roughly equal size, yet the 1842 Ordnance Survey six-inch map already shows it in existence, suggesting the expansion had taken place well before his account was written, and rather longer ago than his phrasing implied.