Templenaneeve, in the Ross area of County Clare, carries within it the Irish word "naomh", meaning saint or saints, folded into a place-name of the type that typically marks an early ecclesiastical site, a church or enclosure associated with a holy figure now largely forgotten by the written record. These "temple" place-names, from the Irish "teampall", a church, are scattered across Clare and the wider west of Ireland, often surviving in the landscape long after the physical remains of any structure have vanished into farmland or scrub.

Beyond the name itself, the documentary record for this particular site is thin to the point of silence. No detailed account of what survives on the ground, whether foundations, a burial enclosure, a holy well, or simply a field with an old name attached to it, is currently available. What can be said is that the surrounding area of Ross sits within a part of Clare with deep early medieval roots, a county where early Christian and pre-Christian monuments frequently overlap, and where unremarkable-looking fields have a habit of concealing the outlines of enclosures or the rubble of small churches when examined more closely. The name Templenaneeve almost certainly preserves the memory of a local cult or community that once regarded this ground as set apart in some way.