The enclosure, roughly 12.5 metres across in both directions, was recorded as a circular feature or antiquity on the Ordnance Survey's six-inch map of 1840, then simply dropped from the record. Whether it was ever a ring-barrow, which is a low circular earthwork typically associated with prehistoric or early medieval burial, or whether it was a landscaping feature of the surrounding demesne, or even the ghost outline left by a long-vanished ring of trees, has not been resolved.

The site sits within the demesne lands attached to Abbey House, 620 metres south-east of the ruined Augustinian Priory on Rathkeale's Main Street. The priory, a medieval foundation, gives the townland its name, and the surrounding landscape carries several layers of history embedded within its apparently ordinary fields. The enclosure's disappearance from the 1897 Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, and from all aerial orthoimagery taken between 2005 and 2018, suggests that whatever earthwork once existed had been substantially reduced or ploughed out by the late nineteenth century. The faint trace visible on a Google Earth image taken in February 2009 may reflect seasonal ground conditions that briefly brought a buried feature back to the surface. A comparable circular feature survives 125 metres to the east, in the next field, and does appear on both the 1897 map and more recent aerial imagery, giving the Abbeylands site a tantalising parallel that slightly strengthens the case for genuine antiquity. The site was compiled for the record by Edmond O'Donovan and uploaded in September 2020.

The enclosure lies on private farmland within a demesne, so access is not straightforward; the site is not publicly marked or maintained. Those with a particular interest in landscape archaeology and crop-mark phenomena would find the Ordnance Survey historical map viewer a useful starting point, allowing comparison of the 1840 six-inch sheet with current satellite imagery. The eastern feature, visible on later maps, offers a more legible point of reference when trying to orient yourself across the fields. Ground conditions in late winter or early spring, when soil moisture levels vary and buried features are most likely to show, would give the best chance of seeing any surface trace, though there is no guarantee that anything remains perceptible at ground level at all.