For a time, that is more or less what it was assumed to be. Early survey work logged it as a possible enclosure, and later as a possible tree ring, the kind of deliberately planted circular grove that was a feature of designed demesne landscapes in Ireland, often laid out to ornament an estate or mark a boundary with a degree of visual formality.

When field inspection took place around 1995, the site turned out to be rather more recent than the prehistoric or early medieval origins the classifications had quietly implied. The tree ring dates to the 19th century, placing it firmly in the era of landlord-era estate improvement, when landowners across Ireland reshaped their grounds with plantations, avenues, and ornamental features. By that point the ring was already partially destroyed, its original form readable only in outline. What survives is a remnant of a deliberate landscaping effort, the kind of thing that rarely attracts much notice precisely because it belongs to a period that feels neither ancient enough to be archaeological nor recent enough to be architectural history.