The name itself is thought to derive from the Irish, and the presence of a recorded burial ground here suggests that a church or ecclesiastical enclosure once organised the landscape around this spot, as was common across early medieval Ireland. Many such sites began as simple monastic foundations or parish churches that fell out of use over the centuries, leaving the graveyard as the only visible trace of a community that once gathered there regularly.

Burial grounds of this type, sometimes described as disused or historic graveyards in the archaeological record, frequently contain early grave markers, possibly including uninscribed slabs or simple crosses cut from local stone, and their boundaries can preserve the outline of a much earlier enclosure. In some cases the circular or oval shape of the surrounding field or ditch reflects the original ecclesiastical boundary, known in Irish archaeology as a cashel or enclosure wall. Whether any such features survive at Kilcurl is difficult to say with certainty from what is currently available, but the classification of the site as a graveyard of archaeological significance places it in a long tradition of early Christian and medieval burial practice that is found throughout the Kilkenny countryside.