It is the kind of place that leaves almost no impression on the landscape, yet turns up, quietly insistent, across several layers of historical record, each one adding a little more to a story that is still largely unresolved.

The earliest documentary evidence comes from the Down Survey, the ambitious mid-seventeenth-century mapping project carried out between 1655 and 1656 under the direction of William Petty, which recorded landholdings across Ireland in the aftermath of the Cromwellian wars. That survey shows a dwelling in this townland, suggesting the site was already established by the time the surveyors arrived. Whether the structure they recorded was the same one later known as Bay House is not certain, but the 1937 Ordnance Survey six-inch edition marks a building on what may be the same ground, noted simply as "Bay House (in Ruins)". By that point it had clearly been abandoned for some time. Archaeological excavation carried out under licence number E3919, in advance of road development in the vicinity, added another dimension to the site's history by uncovering evidence of medieval activity, pushing the timeline of human occupation in the area back further still.

There is little to see at the location today, the concrete works having long since replaced whatever structural remains may once have been visible. For anyone interested in following the documentary trail rather than the physical one, the Down Survey maps have been digitised and are freely accessible online, allowing the original survey record to be consulted directly. The site is perhaps most useful as a reminder of how thoroughly the built environment of early modern Ireland has been erased, and how much can still be inferred from the overlap of old maps, ordnance survey editions, and the occasional patch of ground disturbed by road-building.