It does not appear on any historical Ordnance Survey maps of Ireland. For a very long time, in the official cartographic record at least, it simply did not exist.

The site came to light through aerial photography rather than ground survey. The Archaeological Survey of Ireland identified it during a photographic survey in 2005, and subsequent orthoimage analysis, using captures from the OSi between 2005 and 2012 and Digital Globe between 2011 and 2013, confirmed its circular form and surrounding fosse. Google Earth imagery from 2016, 2017, and 2018 has since corroborated what those earlier surveys showed. The record was compiled by Edmond O'Donovan and uploaded in October 2020. Classified as a ditch barrow, a type of funerary monument typically consisting of a low mound enclosed within a circular ditch, this example sits on level ground approximately 850 metres south-east of the junction where the townland boundaries of Ballintaw and Dunkip meet. It is not alone in this landscape: a large enclosure lies roughly 650 metres to the north-west, and a second enclosure sits only 195 metres to the south-west, suggesting this part of Limerick holds a cluster of features that the flat terrain has quietly preserved beneath grass.

Because the site sits on private farmland and carries no signage or formal public access, a visit requires both permission from the landowner and a degree of patience with unmarked terrain. The feature is most legible from aerial images rather than at ground level, where the ditch and any residual mounding may be subtle against the surrounding pasture. Cropmarks or soil marks, the colour and growth differences in grass that often reveal buried archaeology from above, tend to show most clearly in dry summer conditions when vegetation stress picks out underlying ditches. Those with access to Google Earth can locate it using the orthoimage record, which remains one of the clearest ways to appreciate the monument's near-perfect geometry.