It took a fire to find it. When a gorse blaze swept the hillside in 1986, it stripped back the vegetation and exposed the mound beneath, which had gone unrecorded on both the 1840 Ordnance Survey six-inch maps and the later 1897 twenty-five-inch edition. Even aerial surveys taken between 2005 and 2013 failed to detect it. For well over a century, the site had been effectively invisible, sheltered under bracken and thorns.

The mound came to light through the attentiveness of Jerry McMahon of Ardagh, a member of the Newcastle Historical Society, who identified it in 1986 following the fire and reported his findings. The Archaeological Survey of Ireland inspected the site that same year and classified it as a burial mound or barrow, a general term for a raised earthen structure typically constructed over prehistoric burials, sometimes covering stone chambers or cremated remains. What adds further interest to its setting is its proximity to a hillfort whose external rampart lies roughly 200 metres to the west. Hillforts are large enclosed sites, often defined by earthen banks or ditches, and are generally associated with the Iron Age, though their precise functions vary. Whether the mound and the hillfort are related in any meaningful way is not established by the available record, but their closeness is worth noting. By 2010, the mound's location had become visible on Google Earth imagery, suggesting that the vegetation had thinned enough, or the ground had changed sufficiently, for its outline to register from above.

The site sits on rough, sloping ground on the eastern face of Ballylin Hill, with open views stretching to the north-east, east, and south-east. Access is not formalised, and the terrain, dominated by gorse and bracken, makes for difficult walking. Anyone attempting to locate the mound on the ground would do well to consult the location map prepared by Jerry McMahon, referenced in the Archaeological Survey records, alongside current Google Earth imagery. The mound itself is modest in appearance, and without knowing what to look for, it would be easy to pass without noticing anything at all.