What makes it worth attention is the layering: a burial ground that was already long-established before the convent arrived, and which continued to grow around and alongside the community of nuns who eventually came to occupy the site.

Ordnance Survey maps from 1842 and 1904 both show a rectangular burial ground measuring roughly 45 metres on its north-east to south-west axis and about 50 metres across. By the time the 1936 survey was made, the graveyard had expanded considerably to the south-east, more than doubling in length to approximately 120 metres along its longer axis. The oldest inscribed headstones are concentrated at the northern end, and the earliest recorded date among them is 1725, suggesting the site had been in use as a formal burial place well before the convent period. A dedicated nuns' burial area lies to the east, a common arrangement in religious communities where the vowed members were interred separately from lay parishioners. Also at the northern end are the remains of the medieval parish church of Drishane, the presence of which helps explain why burials here have such depth of continuity: communities tended to keep burying their dead close to their church long after the building itself fell out of use.

The graveyard sits within what was formerly Drishane Convent, and visitors approaching the site should expect a setting that still carries the character of an enclosed institutional space. The northern end, where the oldest headstones and the church remains are concentrated, rewards the most attention for anyone interested in the pre-convent history of the site.