It took an illegal excavation in 1981 to bring it back into view, which is an unusual way for a seventh-century ecclesiastical site to re-enter the archaeological record. The church is substantially ruined now, but its bones are legible enough: a rectangular structure measuring roughly 13.65 metres long and 7.15 metres wide, oriented west-northwest to east-southeast in the manner common to early Irish church buildings. A doorway survives in the north wall, and a lancet window sits off-centre in the east gable. The west gable holds a blocked trabeate doorway, also off-centre; trabeate here means a simple post-and-lintel opening rather than an arched one, a construction style associated with earlier medieval building practice in Ireland.

The site is understood to lie on or very close to a foundation attributed to St Fechin, a monastic figure active in the seventh century who is also associated with the better-known site of Fore in County Westmeath. The church sits within a rectangular stone enclosure, at least 19.4 metres by 8.1 metres, elements of which remain visible to the west and south. Burials found within this enclosure were stratigraphically later than the church itself, meaning they post-date its construction and were inserted into the site after it was already established. Curiously, a graveyard recorded on nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey maps approximately fifty metres to the south has left no visible trace on the ground, suggesting either that the sand has reclaimed it or that the original surveyors were working from incomplete information.

Omey Island is a tidal island accessible on foot across the strand at low water from Claddaghduff on the Connemara coast. The crossing is straightforward in good conditions but requires attention to the tides, and the island rewards careful exploration, as Templefeheen is only one of several archaeological remains recorded there.