Follies were built to be looked at rather than lived in, conjuring false histories or picturesque disorder on the estates of those wealthy enough to afford whimsy. Their presence in a designed landscape signals a deliberate shaping of the land around them, paths and sight lines arranged so that the eye would arrive at something unexpected, something that suggested age or romance without actually being either.

Beyond its classification and location in Oltore, the documentary record for this particular structure is thin. What the designation does confirm is that it was considered significant enough to record as part of a designed landscape, placing it within a tradition of estate improvement that flourished in Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when landowners remade their demesnes in the manner of English and continental fashion. A folly in this context would have served as a terminal feature or eye-catcher, a point of arrival on a walk through grounds that were as carefully composed as a painting.