The "Kil" prefix, from the Irish "cill", denotes an early Christian church or cell, suggesting that burial and worship on this ground may reach back well over a thousand years. Such sites are scattered across Clare and the wider west of Ireland, often the only surviving trace of a monastic foundation or a local saint's community that once gave a townland its name and its identity.

Kilseily itself points, through its name, to a dedication or association now largely obscure. Many "cill" sites in Clare were active from the early medieval period, some continuing as parish burial grounds long after any associated church had fallen to ruin or been superseded. The graveyard may preserve grave slabs, boundary walls, or other features characteristic of these long-used sacred enclosures, though the specific details of what survives at Kilseily remain, for now, largely undocumented in publicly accessible form.