The site exists, for most practical purposes, as a cropmark, one of those faint signatures that appears in aerial photographs when buried features affect the growth of crops or grass above them, causing subtle variations in colour and height that only become legible from altitude. The photographs that captured it, taken on 19 July 1971, show an outline measuring approximately 55 metres north-northwest to south-southeast and 52 metres east-northeast to west-southwest, giving it a form just slightly off square.

The enclosure sits on a slightly terraced break in slope, where the steep upper face of the Clomantagh hills gives way to land that drops more gently down towards a valley to the south and west. This kind of location, positioned where two different gradients meet, is not unusual for early enclosures in Ireland, which were often sited to take advantage of natural landforms for drainage, visibility, or defence. What makes the Balief site particularly interesting is that it appears to conjoin with a second, roughly D-shaped enclosure immediately to the northwest. Whether the two were in use at the same time, or whether one represents a later addition or modification of the other, remains an open question. The possibility that the square enclosure was simply a small field boundary, rather than a settlement or ritual site, has also been raised, which gives the whole arrangement an agreeable ambiguity. Both enclosures are in reclaimed grassland, and the views from the terrace take in wide distances to the north, south, and west.