The conjunction of incarceration and cultivation is unusual enough to pause on. Was this a working prison that maintained gardens for labour or sustenance, or does the name preserve a much older use of the word, one that in Irish placename tradition could refer to an enclosure or a confined space of an entirely different kind? The designation sits in the record without elaboration, which is itself a small historical curiosity.

The word "prison" in Irish topographical names does not always carry its modern meaning. In some cases it derives from the Irish "priosún", borrowed from the Norman French and applied to formal places of detention, but in other instances older usages describe enclosed landholdings, walled gardens, or even ecclesiastical precincts. Gardens, meanwhile, were frequently attached to demesnes, monasteries, and institutional buildings alike, sometimes cultivated by those held within the walls. Without more surviving documentation, it is difficult to say which tradition this Kilkenny site belongs to, or whether both elements of the name reflect the same period of use or two entirely different phases of occupation layered on top of one another over centuries.