A sub-oval embankment, rising to about 1.3 metres, sits as the focal point of the enclosure, its southern and eastern sides dropping away sharply while the northern and western slopes ease off more gradually. That kind of raised, roughly oval platform is often a sign that a site has been in continuous ritual or ecclesiastical use for a very long time, the accumulated earth of generations of burial and earlier structural activity gradually mounding up into a distinct landform. The surrounding wall, reaching about a metre in height and built partly in dry-stone and partly in mortared construction, reflects the piecemeal maintenance typical of a graveyard that has never quite fallen out of use.

The antiquarian Thomas Johnson Westropp, writing in 1904 to 1905, noted that the remains of Derrygalvan Church were still visible within the graveyard until around 1840, when they appear to have been cleared or collapsed entirely. Nothing of that structure now survives above ground. The graves themselves offer a small puzzle of orientation: most are aligned ENE to WSW, a slight deviation from the strict east to west alignment traditionally associated with Christian burial, in which the body faces the rising sun in anticipation of resurrection. A cluster in the northern part of the yard, however, holds to the more conventional E to W axis. Whether this reflects different periods of use, the influence of the underlying topography, or simply local custom is not recorded. The earliest surviving monuments are upright limestone slabs, dating from the eighteenth century.

The graveyard lies immediately northeast of a minor road, set in gently undulating pasture. Because it remains an active burial ground, it is accessible and reasonably maintained. Visitors approaching on foot should look for the boundary wall before the embankment becomes visible, as the site sits low in the landscape and does not announce itself from a distance. The limestone slab markers at the older end of the yard are worth seeking out, worn but still legible in places, and the change in grave orientation between the northern cluster and the rest of the yard is easier to read on the ground than it sounds on paper.