Others survive only as a faint curve on a map and a shadow on an aerial photograph. In the upland townland of Derrymore in County Tipperary, a possible early enclosure falls firmly into the second category. Just below the summit of a west-facing hill, the only thing on the ground that might mark its presence is a curving townland boundary, the kind of administrative line that often, in Ireland, quietly follows the ghost of something much older.

The site was identified not by excavation or field survey but from aerial photographs taken by the Geological Survey of Ireland in June 1973. Aerial photography has long been one of archaeology's more reliable tools for spotting enclosures, which are typically circular or subcircular features, sometimes the remains of a ringfort or an early settlement boundary, that leave crop marks or soil discolouration visible from above long after any upstanding structure has gone. In this case, the curving townland boundary is the sole possible trace on the ground of whatever the photographs revealed. A modern farm shed now sits immediately north of that boundary line, within the area of the possible enclosure itself, a reminder that farmland in active use tends not to wait for archaeology to catch up.