The Ordnance Survey mapped it simply as 'Fort' in 1836, a label that captured something of its presence without quite accounting for what it might actually be.

The site has attracted speculation rather than certainty. Writing in 1948, Davies suggested it was almost certainly a Neolithic monument, comparing it to Lyle's Hill in County Antrim and similar enclosures across Ulster. Lyle's Hill is a type of causewayed or hilltop enclosure associated with early farming communities, and the comparison places Magherintemple in a category of monuments that are prehistoric in origin but difficult to date or interpret precisely without excavation. What makes the site stranger still is that its history did not stop in prehistory. A church site lies within the enclosure, suggesting the hilltop retained or acquired religious significance well into the early medieval period. And by the sixteenth century, the summit was being used as a fair ground, approached by several old roads that Davies noted were still visible in his time. The hill, in other words, accumulated significance across thousands of years, each layer sitting loosely over the last.