The site at Stowlin had been quietly erased by centuries of ploughing before a geophysical survey in 2013 finally caught its outline, revealing that the church and graveyard already known in the area were not isolated features at all, but survivors sitting almost at the centre of a much larger, long-vanished complex.

A follow-up drone survey in July 2018 filled in the picture considerably. The enclosure proved to be roughly oval in plan, measuring around 153 metres north to south and 138 metres east to west, a substantial footprint by any measure. What once defined its boundary was most likely a bank, somewhere between five and seven metres wide, paired with a fosse, the term for the ditch that typically accompanied such an earthen boundary. Ecclesiastical enclosures of this type were a common feature of early Irish Christianity, used to delineate the sacred or functional space around a monastery, church, or religious community. The drone imagery also picked out a number of rectangular and subrectangular enclosures within the boundary, smaller subdivisions whose purpose remains unclear. They may belong to the original ecclesiastical layout, perhaps domestic or agricultural structures associated with a religious community, or they may represent later activity on the same ground, unrelated to the enclosure itself.

What makes Stowlin quietly arresting is precisely what makes it difficult to see. The enclosure survives only as a crop and soil mark, legible to instruments and aerial cameras rather than to a casual eye walking the field. The church and graveyard remain, embedded in what was once a far more elaborate arrangement of boundaries and buildings, most of which has long since been turned under the soil.