Unlike the more familiar vertical waterwheel, a horizontal-wheeled mill, sometimes called a Norse or tub mill, used a wheel laid flat beneath the millstone, turned directly by a jet of water channelled through a wooden trough or stone flume. The design is ancient, requiring relatively little water pressure and almost no complex gearing, which made it well suited to the small streams and modest gradients of the Irish countryside. Mills of this type appear across Ireland from the early medieval period onward, often serving a single townland or a cluster of farms.

Beyond its classification and location, detailed information about the Levallinree mill, including its construction date, the families who worked it, and the precise condition of any surviving fabric, is not currently available in the public record.