It is not especially tall, not especially wide, and it is heavily overgrown, the kind of structure that announces itself only to someone already looking. Yet its proportions, roughly 17 metres north to south and 14 metres east to west, suggest a deliberate enclosure rather than a field boundary or a collapsed outbuilding. Whatever it once contained or kept out, it has been quietly reclaiming its position on the island's high ground for a very long time.

The wall itself stands approximately 0.7 metres high and 0.7 metres wide, dimensions consistent with the dry-stone enclosures found across the west of Ireland, structures that range in date from the early medieval period through to more recent centuries. An enclosure of this type, subcircular in plan and occupying a commanding position on an island, could plausibly have served any number of purposes: a small monastic precinct, a livestock pound, or simply a protected space taking advantage of the natural defence that water provides. The survey of the Ballinrobe district, compiled by D. Lavelle and published in 1994 by the Lough Mask and Lough Carra Tourist Development Association, recorded it without assigning it a specific date or function, which is itself a kind of honesty about how much remains uncertain at sites like this one.