The place is Knockainy, and its name alone carries an unusual depth: derived from Cnoc Áine, the hill of Áine, it refers to a figure from Irish mythology whose presence is echoed in the dense concentration of prehistoric sites on the hill above the village. Archaeologists have long treated this landscape as a significant prehistoric cult site, and that deeper past shadows everything that came after.

The Norman chapter began when the manor of Anya, as it was then written, was granted to Geoffrey de Marisco, who also founded a preceptory for the Knights Hospitallers, a military and religious order that cared for pilgrims and the sick, at the nearby village of Hospital. In 1226, King Henry III granted de Marisco the right to hold an annual eight-day fair at Anya each year from the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, running from the 8th to the 15th of September. By 1287, when an extent of lands belonging to Thomas de Clare was drawn up following his death, the burgesses of Any held four carucates of land in the manor; a carucate was a unit of land measurement used in medieval administration, roughly the area a team of oxen could plough in a year. The borough fades from the record after that, and it is generally thought to have been abandoned during the troubled later fourteenth century, a fate shared by many of Limerick's smaller medieval settlements. The patent rolls do record later legal complications: in 1389 Thomas Clifford and his wife Joan were pardoned for entering the manor without royal licence, and by 1409 its custody had passed to Thomas fitz Morice. The Civil Survey of 1640 found Thady Grady of Killkillane holding lands here that included a castle, nine cabins, and a mill seat.

The medieval borough is thought to have been centred on the crossroads and along the roads running north and west on the Camoge's western bank. A Fair Green survives on high ground to the west of Knockainy Castle, though this likely dates from after 1700; the earlier Town Green appears on the Down Survey map, located beside the church ruins and the structure recorded as both Black Castle and Desmond Castle. Visitors exploring the area should keep an eye on those older map sources for orientation, as the physical remains are scattered and the landscape has changed considerably since the borough's medieval peak. The church ruins and castle remains are the most tangible anchors for anyone trying to read the settlement's former shape on the ground.