It measures roughly 39 metres by 20 metres, sits on a gently south-east-facing slope, and for a long time gave no obvious indication of what it once was. What eventually drew attention to it was not antiquarian curiosity but road engineering: the planned N18/N19 Ballycasey-Dromoland Road Improvement Scheme brought archaeologists to the site, and what they found turned out to be considerably more interesting than the topography suggested.

A trial excavation in 1999 indicated that the enclosure was most likely the remains of a medieval or post-medieval farmstead. A full excavation followed in 2001 and confirmed a post-medieval date. The wall itself was solidly constructed, averaging around 1.5 metres in width, with large stones set as facing on both the interior and exterior surfaces and the cavity between them packed tightly with smaller stones. This kind of double-faced rubble-fill construction was a practical and relatively common approach in rural building, designed to produce a sturdy boundary without requiring dressed or shaped stone throughout. What gave the site particular interest was the range of material recovered from inside the enclosure: the finds pointed to both domestic life and some form of industrial activity taking place within the same modest space, suggesting a working farmstead where everyday household routines and small-scale production overlapped in the way that would have been entirely ordinary for the period.