Set on a prominent rise off the village green, with the terrain falling away sharply to the north, east, and west, the site has an unassuming but layered quality. What catches the eye once inside, particularly to the south-west of the church, are six squat, irregularly shaped headstones decorated with folk art, amateur carvings that sit quite apart from the more formal memorial tradition. They are easy to walk past without registering what they are.

The graveyard's history reaches back well into the medieval period. A fortified church tower, the kind that served as both a place of worship and a defensible residence, still stands in the south-west sector and is a National Monument in state care. The medieval parish church that once accompanied it was eventually replaced in 1816 by a Church of Ireland building erected under the Board of First Fruits, a body that funded the construction of Protestant churches across Ireland in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. That 1816 building now operates as the Balrothery Heritage Centre. The site holds a substantial concentration of eighteenth-century memorials, documented by Harold Mytum in 2003. Beneath it all, archaeology has continued to surface unexpected finds. Monitoring during refurbishment works in 1999 revealed a portion of a medieval burial ground to the south of the church's south-west corner. Test excavations in 2002 ahead of a proposed extension uncovered three fragmentary burials, which were preserved in situ rather than removed. Further monitoring of that same extension in 2004 brought up a bullaun stone, a roughly hewn rock with one or more circular depressions ground into its surface, often associated with early Christian sites and sometimes believed to have held water used in ritual or healing. In October 2014, a fallen tree caused some collapse in the graveyard wall.

The graveyard is still in active use, so visitors should be mindful of that. The entrance gate is on the east side. The folk art headstones to the south-west of the church are worth seeking out slowly and deliberately, as their irregular shapes and carved decoration reward close attention rather than a passing glance. The fortified tower nearby is in state care and visually distinct from the later church building, so the two are easy to distinguish once you know what you are looking at.