Within its sub-rectangular graveyard lie numerous historical features, including what tradition claims to be a monastery founded by St. Patrick himself. The site occupies an enviable position on gently sloping land that leads down to Lough Foyle to the east, offering both spiritual isolation and practical access to water and fertile ground that would have sustained the monastic community.

In 2014, the Bernician Studies Group conducted a magnetometer survey of the fields surrounding the churches and graveyard, revealing the ghostly outline of the original ecclesiastical enclosure that once defined the boundaries of this Early Christian monastery. The survey brought to light what centuries of farming and weather had hidden, tracing the footprint of a religious community that thrived here over a millennium ago. A clean-up scheme in 2010 had already yielded unexpected treasures when several previously unrecorded cross-slabs were discovered amongst the weathered headstones.

The Bernician Studies Group’s subsequent survey within the graveyard documented twenty cross slabs, half of which featured the distinctive ringed cross design characteristic of early Irish Christianity. One particularly notable example stands as a testament to the skill of these ancient stone carvers; a coarse-grained laminated stone, carefully squared despite now leaning slightly southward, measuring 540mm in height above ground. Its western face bears a cross carved in low relief, no more than 5mm deep in places, with curved edges on the cross arms and delicate detailing that, despite centuries of weathering and surface flaking, still speaks to the devotion of those who created it.