In 2000, a survey covering roughly forty square miles north of Killarney was carried out to assess possible routes for a new road. It was during this work that the enclosure came to light, a site that might otherwise have remained unrecorded for considerably longer. Enclosures of this kind, defined areas bounded by banks, ditches, or stone walls, are among the most common yet least understood monument types in the Irish landscape. They could serve any number of purposes depending on their period and context, from settlement to agriculture to ritual use, and their significance is rarely obvious from the ground.

The discovery was communicated by M. Connolly, and the site was subsequently compiled into the archaeological record by researchers at University College Cork. The circumstances of its identification are a reminder of how much of Ireland's archaeological landscape has surfaced not through dedicated excavation but as a byproduct of infrastructure planning and environmental assessment. Road schemes in particular, by requiring systematic survey of large areas of countryside, have repeatedly brought previously unknown sites into view.