Uninhabited since the 1930s, when the last of its community was evacuated following a tragedy at sea, the island retains the outlines of a human presence stretching back far beyond living memory. Among those traces is a recorded enclosure, the sort of roughly circular or sub-rectangular boundary that can indicate anything from an early medieval settlement to a monastic enclave or a simple agricultural compound. Without more detail it is impossible to say precisely what this one represents, but its existence on an island this remote gives it an particular weight.

Enclosures of this kind are a common feature of the Irish archaeological landscape, and their interpretation usually depends on what survives within or alongside them: hut sites, souterrains (underground passages associated with early medieval habitation), ecclesiastical fragments, or field systems. The Inishkea islands were home to early Christian communities, and archaeological work carried out in the twentieth century uncovered evidence of early monastic activity on Inis Gé Thuaidh, the northern island. Whether the enclosure on Inis Gé Theas connects to that same current of settlement, or belongs to a different period entirely, remains an open question. The island's isolation has protected much of what survives above ground, but it has also meant that detailed investigation has been limited.

Access to Inis Gé Theas is by boat from the Belmullet peninsula, typically from the pier at Blacksod or Fallmore, and is entirely dependent on weather and sea conditions. The crossing is not long in distance, but the Atlantic approach to north-west Mayo can be unpredictable, and local knowledge is essential. The island has no permanent facilities. Visitors who do make it ashore find a landscape of low vegetation, abandoned cottage walls, and the particular stillness of a place that was once thoroughly inhabited and is now entirely not.