It is, in fact, the last trace of a medieval church and its surrounding burial ground, identified on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1923 as a sub-oval platform roughly thirty metres east to west and fifteen metres north to south. Today the earthwork measures closer to seventeen metres across, defined by a scarped edge, essentially a cut bank that drops about 1.3 metres, giving the monument its only real visual definition against the surrounding grass. Nothing obviously ecclesiastical remains above ground.

The Irish name Teampall Mhíchíl, meaning the church of Saint Michael, was recorded in the Ordnance Survey Letters, the nineteenth-century field notebooks compiled by surveyors working their way across the country. Local people at the time spoke of a graveyard on the spot, and their recollection had some physical backing: in 1819, during cultivation of the field, human bones and the remains of old coffins had been turned up by the plough. By 1840, the Ordnance Survey Name Books noted that the ruins lay level with the ground, covered in grass and planted about with fir trees, and recorded a local tradition that the site had once been a friary, surrounded by a spacious graveyard. Whether it was ever a friary in any formal sense is unclear from the surviving record, but the repeated discovery of human remains confirmed that the ground had been used for burial across a considerable period. Archaeological monitoring in 2002, carried out under licence by Brian Hodkinson in connection with nearby house construction, found no features or deposits of archaeological significance.

The site lies on a gentle north-west-facing slope near Caherconlish in County Limerick, with open views to the west, north, and east. Because the earthwork is now largely obscured by grass and sits close to a private residence, there is little to see without knowing what to look for. The scarped edge to the platform is the most legible feature, and it reads most clearly in low winter light when shadows help pick out changes in ground level. The site is noted on the Historic Environment Viewer, which provides its mapped extent and is useful for orientating yourself before visiting the road verge from which the platform can be observed.