That detail alone gives this small, trapezoidal plot an unusual atmosphere, as if the living and the dead have simply run out of room to maintain polite distance. The graveyard is otherwise enclosed by a stone wall, and measures roughly 43 metres north to south by 32 metres east to west, a modest but tidy space that remains in occasional use.

The earliest inscribed headstone here dates to 1735, though many of the gravemarkers are low and uninscribed, suggesting burials that predate the fashion for personalised memorials or simply belonged to families who could not afford them. In the south-east quadrant stands the Fitton family vault, its front facade built in rusticated limestone, a style in which the stone blocks are given a deliberately rough or raised surface to create a sense of solidity and texture. The facade faces east, while to the rear a sod-covered mound is gradually collapsing. Interments in the vault span from 1811 to 1926, a period that covers more than a century of a single family's Cork history, neatly compressed into one corner of a small parish ground. At the northern end of the graveyard stand the ruins of Carrigrohanebeg parish church, which once served the community that these graves represent.