In Irish, "fearann" means a land division or territory, and "teampall" means a church, so the townland name itself points to an ecclesiastical presence that has long since faded from view. What remains is the graveyard, a site that tends to outlast the buildings and communities it once served, continuing to mark the landscape even after the church that gave the place its name has gone.

Graveyards of this kind, sometimes called "teampall" or church-field burial grounds, are found throughout Kilkenny and the wider Irish midlands. They often occupy ground that was sacred well before any formal structure was raised, and they continued to receive burials long after those structures collapsed or were cleared away. The name Farrantemple suggests the site belonged to a territorial unit defined by its association with a church, a common pattern in the organisation of early medieval and later ecclesiastical land in Ireland. Without further detail it is not possible to say when the burials here began or ended, or whose community this ground served, but the name alone argues for considerable age.