It is marked clearly on the 1843 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, drawn and recorded as a real feature of the Dublin upland landscape, and yet anyone who goes looking for it today will find nothing there at all. No stones, no earthwork, no depression in the ground. The circle has simply vanished, leaving only its cartographic ghost.

How or when the circle was removed or disturbed is not recorded. What the 1843 OS map confirms is that it was considered a recognisable monument at the time of the first systematic survey of Ireland, which suggests it had some visible coherence at that point. Stone circles are prehistoric ceremonial monuments, typically Bronze Age in date, consisting of upright stones arranged in a rough ring, and they appear in small numbers across the Dublin and Wicklow uplands. The Ballymana example is now counted among those where no surface remains survive. A short distance to the south, a scatter of irregular granite boulders sits in no apparent pattern. These are known locally as Horan's Stones, a name that connects them to Malachy Horan, a former resident of the area, as noted by Healy in 1975. Whether the boulders are displaced remnants of the circle, or simply a separate glacial or agricultural feature, is not established.

The site sits on Tallaght Hill, which lies at the northern edge of the Dublin Mountains. Access to the upland pasture is through rough terrain, and the ground underfoot can be boggy depending on the season, so reasonable footwear matters. There is nothing to see at the circle's recorded location, but the landscape itself carries the interest: the plateau offers a broad orientation across the surrounding hills, and the granite boulders to the south are easy enough to identify once you know to look for them. The monument is catalogued and its grid reference survives, so the precise location can be plotted. It is, essentially, a place where archaeology has become a matter of trust in old mapmakers.