That boundary, a substantial perimeter of cut stone running to the south and west of the cathedral building, dates to after 1700, yet the ground it contains has been in continuous ecclesiastical use for the better part of a millennium. It is one of those urban spaces that city life has simply grown around, its roughly rectangular plot measuring approximately 100 metres on its longer axis and 82 metres across, pressing quietly against the older fabric of the city.

The cathedral itself anchors the graveyard's origins. According to the Urban Survey of Limerick, compiled by Bradley and colleagues in 1989, the cathedral is thought to have been established at the Synod of Rathbreasail in 1111, a pivotal gathering of the Irish church that reorganised the country into territorial dioceses along continental lines. The physical structure that stands today, however, came rather later; the earliest surviving parts of the building are dated to approximately 1180 to 1195. That places the graveyard's active history somewhere in the same broad period, accumulating quietly beneath the post-medieval wall that was eventually built to contain and define it.

The graveyard lies directly to the south and west of the cathedral church, which occupies a prominent position on King's Island in the old city. The enclosing stone wall, though post-1700 in date, gives the space a settled, formal character that rewards close attention. Visitors approaching from the cathedral entrance will find the boundary wall running along two sides of the plot; it is worth pausing to consider that the ground predates that wall by several centuries at minimum. The site sits within a dense urban context, so access is straightforward, but the scale of the space, substantial for a city-centre graveyard, only becomes apparent once you are inside it.