The enclosure, roughly 48 to 50 metres along its north-west to south-east axis and 35 to 40 metres across, is the kind of feature that rewards close attention to old maps rather than casual observation on the ground.

The earliest documentary trace of the enclosure comes from the first edition six-inch Ordnance Survey map of 1839, which captured it at a moment when the surrounding field system was still largely intact. At that time, a farm trackway and field boundary ran north to south directly through the centre of the monument, and further boundaries approached from the east and west along the southern side, with another running southward from the south-west corner. Enclosures of this general type are among the most common, and most commonly overlooked, archaeological features in the Irish countryside. They may represent the remains of a ringfort, a type of early medieval farmstead enclosed by an earthen bank and ditch, or they may have earlier or later origins entirely. The shape here, subrectangular rather than the more typical circular form, is itself a small puzzle worth noting. By the time satellite imagery captured the area in June 2005, the northern trackway and the eastern field boundary had been removed, meaning the agricultural landscape has continued to shift around the monument even as the enclosure itself persists beneath it.