In May 1955, a researcher named Lucas examined the site on behalf of the National Museum of Ireland and confirmed the identification. The horizontal-wheeled mill, sometimes called a Norse mill or a tub wheel mill, differs from the more familiar vertical waterwheel in that its wheel lies flat beneath the millhouse, driven directly by a jet of water channelled through a wooden chute. The arrangement is mechanically simpler and well suited to the fast-running but lower-volume streams found across much of the Irish countryside. Such mills were once widespread in Ireland, often serving a single townland or small farming community, and their remains tend to be modest, which is part of why they so frequently go unnoticed until construction or drainage work happens to disturb the ground.