Local tradition holds that St. Patrick himself founded this religious settlement, which sits on what would have been prime agricultural land. The site’s entrance is marked by a tall, plain ringed high cross standing sentinel just outside the western boundary, whilst the graveyard itself contains the remnants of two churches and what appears to be a mortuary house or tomb shrine. One of these churches continued to serve the local community as a medieval parish church well into later centuries.

The graveyard has recently yielded another intriguing discovery. During a clean-up scheme in 2010, volunteers uncovered a well-preserved cross-slab that had likely been overlooked for generations. Standing 63 centimetres tall and carved from a single piece of stone, this modest monument bears a ringed cross incised into its surface. The Cooley Cross Heritage Committee, who commissioned a detailed plan of the church and graveyard, catalogued this find as number 13 amongst the site’s various features.

Such cross-slabs represent an important tradition in early Irish Christianity, serving as grave markers, boundary stones, or devotional objects. The Cooly example, with its distinctive ringed cross design, follows a pattern seen throughout Ireland and Scotland during the early medieval period. Its recent rediscovery adds another piece to our understanding of this ancient religious landscape, where generations of faithful have worshipped and been laid to rest for well over a millennium.