Most of it is invisible at ground level; only part of the perimeter survives as a field bank, and even that has a modern appearance. The sheer scale of the enclosure, however, suggests something more organised and purposeful than a simple field boundary, and a small excavation in 1998 confirmed that something significant had once taken place inside it.

When archaeologist Paul Stevens opened a trench measuring six by five metres within the interior, he found clusters of oval burnt pits, post-holes, and ironworking waste, including a broken furnace bowl. Radiocarbon dating of the charcoal placed the ironworking activity between roughly AD 450 and 690, squarely within the early medieval period in Ireland. Cutting across those ironworking features were a series of slot trenches, features that post-date the metalworking and may represent internal divisions or partitions within the larger enclosure. Stevens interpreted the whole complex as a monastic enclosure, proposing a connection to St Odran and a founding date before AD 563 or 548. Monastic enclosures of this period in Ireland were often large circular or oval spaces defined by banks and ditches, enclosing not just a church but workshops, gardens, and various domestic and industrial areas. Ironworking within a monastic context was not unusual; early Irish monasteries frequently functioned as centres of craft production. The identification with St Odran is complicated, however, by early sources that associate Odran's monastery not with Killoran but with a place called Littir-Odhrain, identified as Latteragh, also in County Tipperary, where Odran served as abbot. Whether the Killoran enclosure belonged to a different community altogether, or represents an early phase of activity before Latteragh became Odran's primary foundation, remains an open question.