By the time later Ordnance Survey editions were made, it had been levelled entirely, leaving no surface trace. It only came to light again between September 2005 and January 2006, when excavation ahead of the N6 Galway to Ballinasloe road scheme revealed not just a single-period monument but a site that had accumulated human activity across more than eight centuries, with possible prehistoric origins beneath it all.

The main phase of the enclosure dates to the early medieval period and was defined by a substantial U-shaped fosse, a ditch cut 1.5 metres deep, with the remnants of an internal bank still partially preserved. Within the eastern half of this enclosure lay a burial ground containing 132 burials, almost all laid out in the supine east-west orientation typical of early Christian practice. What makes the site particularly arresting is the demographic pattern within those graves. The earliest burials, from the 7th century, were predominantly women and children, who together accounted for around 70 per cent of that phase. By the second phase, running from the mid-9th to the 11th century and accounting for 75 individuals, fully 93 per cent were non-adults. A third phase continued this trend, with non-adults making up 78 per cent of burials. Only two individuals belong to a final phase dated to the 15th century, suggesting the site was gradually falling out of use. The excavators were careful to note that this clustering of children does not appear to represent a cillín, the informal, unconsecrated burial grounds for unbaptised infants that are common across the west of Ireland in later and post-medieval centuries; rather, it seems to reflect an intentional spatial separation of non-adults within an otherwise ordinary community cemetery. A large assemblage of animal bone also suggested the enclosure functioned as a settlement for a considerable time alongside its role as a burial ground, the living and the dead sharing the same bounded space on the ridge.