What was once a substantial earthen bank, some 148 metres in diameter, circling an early church site, survived long enough to be captured from the air, and then disappeared under later development. No trace of it is visible today.

The enclosure's existence is known primarily through a single aerial photograph, reference BKS 2177 6139, taken in 1971 and later recorded by archaeologist Geraldine Stout. At that point the oval earthen bank was still legible from above, enclosing the site of a church whose separate record number is DU022-036001-. Ecclesiastical enclosures of this type, roughly circular or oval banks of earth demarcating the sacred ground around an early Irish church, are found across the country and are generally associated with early medieval Christian foundations, often pre-dating the formal parish system introduced after the twelfth century. The Balally example, at 148 metres across, would have been a reasonably substantial one, suggesting a site of some local significance. At some point between 1971 and the present, development in the area levelled the bank completely.

There is, in practical terms, nothing to see at Balally today. The enclosure left no visible trace above ground, which makes this less a place to visit than a place to think about, a site defined entirely by its absence. For anyone interested in the archaeology of early medieval Dublin, the value lies in knowing that such features once existed here and in understanding how rapidly suburban expansion during the latter decades of the twentieth century could erase evidence that had endured for perhaps a thousand years. The aerial photograph record, at least, preserves what the ground no longer can.