Its unusual shape, roughly 200 metres along its longest side and tapering to about 50 metres at the narrow end, gives the impression of a site that grew outward from something older and more fixed, rather than being laid out according to plan.

That older core is still visible. Toward the northern part of the graveyard's interior sits a ruined parish church, the church of Rathgogan, around which a smaller, rectangular graveyard had already formed before the surrounding triangular enclosure took its current shape; Ordnance Survey maps from 1842, 1904, and 1935 all record this inner precinct as distinct from the larger ground. On the northern side of this earlier graveyard is a holy well, a type of site in Ireland often associated with pre-Christian or early Christian veneration, frequently dedicated to a local saint and visited for healing or devotional purposes. The whole complex is enclosed in concrete walls, and headstones are numerous, with the earliest dated examples going back to the 1790s. The interior of the ruined church itself has been pressed into further use over time, its floor space now crowded with grave plots. To the southwest of the church stand two roofed mausolea, private burial structures that suggest at least some families of means chose to mark their presence here in a more permanent and architectural way.

The layering at Rathgoggan is what gives the site its particular character: a holy well, a medieval parish church ruin, an enclosed early graveyard, and then a much larger triangular extension, all accumulated within a single set of concrete boundary walls on a quiet road at the edge of a north Cork town.