What makes the site slightly unusual is that for years its very identity was uncertain; early records flagged it only as a windmill "possible", the kind of designation that suggests something recognisable but not yet confirmed, a tower or stump that could have been almost anything until someone went and looked.

A field inspection carried out around 1995 settled the question, establishing that both the windmill and its associated vaulted building date to the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. That period saw a modest expansion of windmill construction in Ireland, particularly in inland and midland areas where watercourses were not always reliable enough to power a mill. The vaulted building alongside it, likely used for storage or as part of the milling operation, is the kind of ancillary structure that tends to disappear from the record when a site is discussed only in passing, so its survival alongside the main tower gives the complex a slightly more complete character than many comparable remains.