It was not recorded through conventional survey work on the ground, and it has no dramatic ruin to mark the spot. What betrays its presence entirely is the grass above it, which grows differently from the surrounding pasture, tracing an oval shape roughly five metres across when seen from the air. This is a cropmark, a phenomenon where buried features alter the moisture and nutrient levels in the soil above them, causing the vegetation to respond visibly, though only under the right atmospheric conditions, typically dry summers when stress on the crop or grass makes the difference most legible.

The site at Ballinstona North was first identified during the Bruff aerial photographic survey of 1986, catalogued as Bruff 139.02, when the cropmark was recognised as a possible conjoined barrow, meaning a burial mound that may share a boundary or structural relationship with an adjacent monument. A second possible barrow lies immediately to the southwest, recorded separately as LI040-212001-. Both sit within the western quadrant of a larger enclosure, suggesting this corner of east Limerick, roughly 740 metres southeast of Greenpark House and close to the townland boundary with Goat Island, contains a cluster of prehistoric activity rather than an isolated monument. The oval cropmark was confirmed again on Ordnance Survey Ireland orthoimagery captured between 2005 and 2012, and is clearly visible on Google Earth images dated April 2013 and September 2018. The record was compiled by Fiona Rooney and uploaded in June 2021.

The site sits in private pastureland, so access would require permission from the landowner. There is nothing to see at ground level in most conditions; the monument reveals itself only from altitude or in satellite and aerial imagery, where the oval shadow of the barrow emerges from the surrounding green. Visitors with an interest in aerial archaeology or the wider prehistoric landscape of the Bruff area might find it worth consulting the relevant Google Earth orthoimages beforehand, as these give the clearest sense of the monument's shape and its relationship to the larger enclosure around it.