Local tradition claims that St. Patrick himself founded this ecclesiastical site, which sits on prime agricultural land with views eastward to the lough. A magnetometer survey conducted by the Bernician Studies Group in 2014 revealed the ghostly outline of the original Early Christian enclosure surrounding the churches and graveyard, traces of the monastery that once thrived here.

The graveyard underwent a clean-up in 2010 that proved more revealing than anyone expected, uncovering several previously unrecorded cross-slabs buried beneath centuries of growth and neglect. The Bernician Studies Group subsequently documented twenty cross slabs within the graveyard boundaries, half of which featured the distinctive ringed cross design characteristic of early Irish Christian art. These stones represent the devotional practices and artistic traditions of the monastery’s medieval inhabitants, each one a tangible link to the community that once gathered here for prayer and worship.

One particularly intriguing stone stands just 330mm above ground; a coarse-grained, laminated slab that has been split clean through from top to bottom. Its western face bears the faint outline of what appears to be a ring-headed cross, though whether this represents heavy erosion of a completed carving or merely the initial markings of an unfinished work remains a mystery. The stone’s chamfered edge and careful shaping suggest skilled craftsmanship, whilst the ghostly cross design, with its circular ring approximately 200mm in diameter, hints at the artistic ambitions of its creator, even if those ambitions were never fully realised.