It has been recorded as a monument, which means someone, at some point, judged it significant enough to classify, yet the details of what it actually is remain largely inaccessible to the casual enquirer.

Enclosures of this kind are among the most common and varied archaeological features in the Irish countryside. The term covers everything from the circular earthen banks of early medieval ringforts, which once protected farmsteads and livestock, to prehistoric ceremonial sites, monastic enclosures, and the bawn walls of later tower houses. Without further detail it is impossible to say which category this Ballinvilla example falls into, or how much of it survives above ground. Mayo is a county with considerable archaeological depth, shaped by millennia of farming, raiding, monastic settlement, and land clearance, and enclosures of all periods are scattered across its townlands in varying states of survival. Some are visible only as cropmarks or soil discolourations; others remain as low but legible earthworks on unimproved pasture.