The site carries the word "abbey" in its name, which suggests a foundation of some scale, most likely a house of regular clergy, perhaps Augustinian or Franciscan, given the concentration of such communities established across Connacht during the medieval period. Yet the details that would ordinarily anchor such a place, its founders, its date of establishment, the order that inhabited it, and the circumstances of its dissolution, remain elusive.

The townland name itself offers a partial clue. "Ballinsmaula" likely derives from the Irish "Baile na Mhúlla" or a similar form, possibly referring to a mill or a summit, though place-name etymology in this part of Mayo is complicated by centuries of anglicisation. Mayo was deeply shaped by successive waves of monastic and mendicant activity, with foundations appearing across the county from the early Christian period through to the later medieval centuries, many of them suppressed or abandoned following the Tudor dissolutions of the sixteenth century. An abbey in ruins in this landscape fits a recognisable pattern, even where the particulars are lost.

Because formal survey documentation for this site has not yet been made publicly available, very little can be said with confidence about what a visitor would find on the ground, how much standing fabric remains, or how accessible the site is across the surrounding land.