For years it appeared on official lists of archaeological monuments, marked with a solid line on the 1916 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, carrying the weight of a formal designation without anyone having looked closely at it.

When an inspection was carried out in 1997, the reality turned out to be more modest. The structure is a subrectangular drystone enclosure, roughly nine metres by nine metres, built in a technique where stones are laid on edge with their long axis pointing inward toward the centre of the wall. That method, while perfectly competent, pointed toward relatively modern construction rather than anything medieval or prehistoric. Drystone walling, which uses no mortar and relies entirely on the careful placement of stones for its stability, is a tradition with deep roots in the Irish landscape, but not every drystone wall is ancient. This one had been listed as an enclosure in both the Sites and Monuments Record in 1992 and the Record of Monuments and Places in 1996, based largely on its appearance on the old map, before closer examination revised that understanding.