It was not a dramatic excavation that brought it to light, but a geophysical survey, essentially a method of reading the ground without breaking it, that detected an anomaly in the soil. That anomaly turned out to be an enclosure roughly 18 metres across, defined by a ditch about a metre wide and oriented with what appears to be an entrance facing east.

The site was partially excavated in 2018 by the Irish Fieldschool of Prehistoric Archaeology, based at NUI Galway, with findings published by Ó Maoldúin in 2020. The work is unfinished, and further excavation is planned. What makes the location particularly interesting is its relationship to neighbouring features. Roughly 40 metres to the west sits a ring-barrow, a type of low earthen burial monument typically associated with the Bronze Age, and just 12 metres away lies another enclosure. Knockloon Hill is, in other words, not an isolated find but part of what appears to be a concentration of ancient activity on a single elevated position in the Burren landscape.

Because the excavations remain incomplete, much about this enclosure, its date, function, and full extent, is still open. It is a site in the process of being understood rather than one that has yielded its conclusions.