It was not a fieldwalker or a local historian who first noticed this feature, but an aerial photographer working on behalf of Bórd Gáis Éireann. When the company was surveying the route of the Curraleigh West to Limerick gas pipeline in November 1984, photographs taken at a scale of 1:10,000 revealed what appeared to be a circular shape in the landscape, tucked at the western end of a mixed conifer and deciduous tree plantation. Without that infrastructure project and its attendant aerial survey, the site might have remained entirely unrecorded.

What makes the earthwork particularly elusive is its absence from Ordnance Survey Ireland historic mapping. It does not appear on any of the OSi historic map editions that form the backbone of Irish archaeological prospection, which means its origins and function remain genuinely uncertain. Researcher Martin Fitzpatrick, who compiled the site record and uploaded it in October 2021, noted that the overgrown area visible on more recent Google Earth orthoimages may be connected to a well and a quarry, both of which are marked on the 1897 edition of the OSi 25-inch map and lie to the east of the earthwork. The quarry itself sits only 65 metres away. The possibility that the earthwork was associated with that mapped well is tentatively raised, though no firm conclusion has been drawn. Duntryleague Hill rises to 922 feet, or 281 metres, with its summit roughly 950 metres to the east of the site.

Accessing the earthwork requires navigating to the western margin of the tree plantation on the hill's western slope, where the ground is likely to be uneven and overgrown. The circular feature is not marked on standard walking maps, and the plantation itself can make orientation difficult. Satellite imagery is probably the most reliable way to orient yourself before visiting, since the overgrown area shows up with some clarity on Google Earth. The adjacent quarry to the east offers a useful landmark. Given the dense vegetation, the drier months will make any examination of the ground considerably easier, though the feature's low-lying earthwork profile means it may be difficult to distinguish from its surroundings at close range regardless of season.