A circular enclosure, the kind of feature that typically indicates early medieval settlement or enclosure of farmland, was recorded on Ordnance Survey maps in both 1842 and 1897, suggesting it was still a legible presence in the landscape well into the Victorian era. By the time aerial surveyors from the Air Corps flew over the area on 10 May 1949, it was visible enough in the photographs to be described as showing up very clearly. At some point after that, it was levelled entirely.

Circular enclosures of this type are common across Ireland, often the remains of raths or ringforts, which were enclosed farmsteads used mainly from the early medieval period onwards. Earthen banks and ditches defined a circular space for a household and its animals, and thousands survive in varying states of preservation. What makes the Brandonwell example notable is not what survives but what does not. The 1949 aerial photographs, taken as part of the Air Corps survey series, captured it in reasonable condition, yet the site has since been wiped from the physical landscape, surviving only as a mark on old maps and a grey tone in mid-century aerial imagery. The survey work carried out by C. Toal for the North Kerry Archaeological Survey, published in 1995, recorded the site as already gone.