That alone would make it an unusual place, but what gives it a particular quality is the completeness of one ruin alongside the apparent abandonment of the other. The walls of the later church still stand to their full height; only the roof is gone.

The older of the two structures is the medieval Rathbarry parish church, whose precise origins are not well documented but whose presence anchors the site in the deeper past. To its north stands the Church of Ireland parish church, built in 1825, which served the local Protestant congregation during the decades of the Castlefreke estate's prominence. It was designed on a rectangular plan, with its long axis running northeast to southwest, and features a shallow chancel projection at the northeast end, a pinnacled tower at the west corner, and an entrance porch at the south corner. The combination of the pinnacled tower and the roofless nave gives it an austere, slightly skeletal appearance that suits its setting. The church was closed in 1927, leaving both buildings within the same enclosure to weather at their own pace.

The graveyard sits within a roughly rectangular yard enclosed by a stone wall, and the whole arrangement occupies the demesne grounds of Castlefreke, the ruined estate house nearby. Visiting requires a degree of orientation within the demesne lands, and the site rewards attention to the relationship between the two ruins rather than any single feature in isolation.