The name itself carries a clue: the "Kil" prefix derives from the Irish "cill", meaning a church or monastic cell, and the dedication embedded in "Fintinan" points toward an early Christian foundation, most likely associated with a local saint whose cult has since faded from common memory. Churches bearing this kind of name are typically among the older layers of the Irish ecclesiastical landscape, often predating the formal parish structures introduced after the twelfth-century reforms.

Beyond the name and the presence of the ruins themselves, the surviving record for this site is thin. What can be said with confidence is that Kilfintinan belongs to a broad category of early medieval or medieval church sites scattered across Clare, many of which served rural communities for centuries before falling out of use, their stones occasionally quarried for field walls or farm buildings nearby. The "Kil" foundation pattern is common across Munster, and Clare in particular retains a high density of such sites, reflecting the intensity of early Christian settlement in the region. Without more detailed survey information, the precise date of construction, the extent of any associated graveyard, and the history of the building's decline remain unclear.

The ruins sit within the townland of Ballybroughan, a name that itself suggests some antiquity, though the exact location of the structure within that townland is not recorded here. Visitors to Clare with an interest in early church sites will find that such ruins are rarely signposted and often require local knowledge or careful map-reading to locate; the surrounding fields may offer little indication of what lies within them until you are almost upon the remains.