The only way it has been detected is from the air, where differences in crop growth betray the buried remains beneath. This is what archaeologists call a cropmark: the soil disturbance left by buried ditches or walls causes vegetation above them to grow at a slightly different rate, producing faint but readable patterns when viewed or photographed from altitude.

The enclosure was identified through aerial photography by Dr D.D.C. Pochin Mould, and what the images show is an irregular univallate enclosure, meaning one bounded by a single bank or ditch, with traces that may indicate internal structures within the perimeter. Univallate enclosures of this kind are frequently associated with ringforts, the circular farmstead enclosures that were built across Ireland during the early medieval period, roughly from the sixth to the twelfth centuries. That connection is reinforced here by the presence of a possible ringfort recorded a short distance to the west. The same aerial photographs also reveal linear features running through the field, which may represent old boundaries, field systems, or other landscape divisions whose date and purpose remain unclear.