The building belongs to the pre-Romanesque tradition of Irish ecclesiastical architecture and was constructed in two distinct phases. The original nave, measuring roughly 8.3 metres in length, features antae, which are projecting side-walls that extend slightly beyond the gable ends, a characteristic detail of early Irish church-building. Its west gable also preserves a trabeate doorway, meaning one formed by a flat horizontal lintel rather than an arch, and this gable still stands close to its full original height. The masonry is mortared limestone with a rubble core, and some of the lower courses contain very large squared blocks, between one and 1.7 metres in length, giving the base of the walls a noticeably monumental quality. The south wall retains a small triangular-headed window. At a later point, the east gable was demolished and a chancel added, extending the building eastward to around 5.4 metres in length. The chancel's construction, though using similar materials, is of noticeably inferior workmanship. A local tradition recorded by Fahey in 1893 holds that this was a daughter house of Kilmacduagh, the well-known monastic site in south Galway associated with Saint Colman MacDuagh. Excavations carried out by Duignan in 1951 confirmed the church's relationship with the underlying cemetery and led him to conclude that it replaced an earlier building whose remains have not yet come to light.

The church sits within a wider ecclesiastical enclosure, and visitors approaching the site will find the west gable the most immediately legible remnant, rising to something close to its original height while the side-walls and chancel survive only at ground level. The large foundation stones are particularly visible in the lower courses, and the triangular-headed window in the south wall is worth looking for among the low surviving masonry.