The enclosure at Lisheenbrien, in the uplands of County Tipperary, is not one of those. Sitting on a south-facing slope of rising ground, it is entirely invisible at ground level, the kind of site that exists more confidently on a map than in the landscape itself.

Enclosures of this type are among the most common prehistoric and early medieval features in the Irish countryside. They typically consist of a circular or oval boundary, formed from an earthen bank, a fosse, or some combination of both, and may have enclosed a dwelling, a farmstead, or land used for keeping animals. What survives at Lisheenbrien has been recorded in the archaeological inventory of North Tipperary, though the physical evidence has either been ploughed out, eroded away, or simply subsumed into the texture of the hillside over centuries. The upland setting is itself worth noting; enclosures on elevated, south-facing ground often reflect a preference for warmth, drainage, and visibility that would have made good practical sense to whoever chose the spot, whether in the Iron Age or the early Christian period.