What makes it stranger still is that nobody is entirely sure what to make of them. The stones show no obvious arrangement, no alignment, no geometry that scholars have been able to pin to a known prehistoric purpose, apart from one stone circle in Cullaun that stands somewhat apart from the general scatter.

When the Inspector of National Monuments recorded the site between 1934 and 1936, he counted 221 stones still standing, 173 of them in Timoney Hills and 48 in the adjoining townland of Cullaun. He described them as "a most remarkable group," noting that they are all of red sandstone or conglomerate, and that they stand or stood between three and six feet in height, with the larger ones averaging around five feet. A later map published in the Archaeological Survey of Ikerrin recorded as many as 245 stones, of which 70 had already been removed by the time of that survey; five cairns, low mounds of piled stone sometimes associated with burial, had also disappeared. The stones sit within the landscaped grounds of Timoney Park, formerly the estate of the Parker-Hutchinson family, and it is that setting which introduces an awkward question. The possibility that the stones were arranged, rearranged, or even erected as estate ornament during the eighteenth or nineteenth century has not been ruled out, and it places a cautious question mark over claims of prehistoric origin.

The field in which one recorded stone, designated 7G on the original survey map, was marked has since become overgrown with furze and scrub, and that particular stone could not be relocated by surveyors. The wider group, however, remains visible across the pasture of the estate, a curious assembly of stones whose origins, whether ancient, ornamental, or somewhere between the two, remain genuinely unresolved.