The site at Ballyine is not remarkable to look at, but beneath the ordinary appearance of its fields lies evidence of both milling and ironworking, side by side, a combination that raises more questions than it answers.

The story begins in 1959, when two mill-structures were uncovered at Ballyine. Writing up his findings in 1965, a researcher named Walsh observed that the field immediately to the west contained what he described as considerable evidence of ancient iron-smelting, specifically slag and furnace-bottoms. Slag is the glassy waste material left over when ore is smelted, and furnace-bottoms are the hardened residues that accumulate at the base of a smelting furnace; both are reliable indicators of ironworking activity. The proximity of this metalworking evidence to the mill-structures naturally prompted speculation that the mills themselves might have been connected to iron production rather than grain. Etienne Rynne, writing in 1998, drew comparisons between the Ballyine mill and a number of iron-working mills in England, lending some weight to that interpretation. However, the discovery of two fragments of millstone at the site complicates that reading considerably. Millstones are not used in iron processing; they are the grinding stones of a grain mill, and their presence at Ballyine suggests the structures were more likely used for milling cereal crops than for working metal.

The site is not formally developed for visitors, and the above-ground traces of the mill-structures and associated ironworking area are unlikely to be immediately obvious without prior research. Anyone with a serious interest would benefit from consulting the Sites and Monuments Record entries for the two mill-structures before making the journey, as the physical remains are subtle and the significance of the site lies as much in what was found in the soil as in anything visible at the surface. The surrounding fields of south County Limerick give little outward hint of the layered industrial activity that once took place here.