For years it appeared in heritage registers under the category of 'Earthwork', a broad classification typically applied to manmade landscape features such as banks, ditches, or enclosures, the kind of thing that might point to ancient settlement or field systems. When someone finally visited in 1999, the site turned out to be a quarry.

The misclassification had persisted since at least 1992, when the site entered the Sites and Monuments Record, and again in 1996 when it was carried into the Record of Monuments and Places. Both registers are cornerstones of Ireland's approach to identifying and protecting archaeological and historical sites, so an entry in either carries a degree of official weight. The gap between that paperwork and the reality on the ground is a small reminder of how Ireland's landscape was catalogued in the years before widespread ground-truthing became routine, often drawing on aerial photographs, historical maps, or local reports rather than direct inspection. A quarry and an earthwork can look surprisingly similar from a distance or from above, particularly when vegetation has softened the edges of the cut.