The enclosure here exists, as far as any visitor is concerned, entirely underground, its circular outline betrayed only from the air, where the differential growth of crops traces the buried remains with enough clarity to be identified and recorded. When the field was surveyed, it was growing potatoes.

The enclosure came to light not through excavation but through aerial photography, a technique that has transformed the understanding of Irish settlement archaeology. Cropmarks form when buried features, such as the ditches and banks of an ancient enclosure, affect how plants grow above them. Ditches, which retain more moisture and nutrients, tend to produce lusher, taller growth, while compacted banks or walls starve the crop slightly, leaving paler, shorter lines. Viewed from above at the right time of year, usually during a dry spell in summer when the contrast is sharpest, these variations sketch the outlines of structures that might otherwise go entirely unnoticed. The circular form identified at Burgesland sits on a west-facing slope in undulating terrain, the kind of rolling Tipperary farmland that has been in continuous agricultural use long enough to have absorbed its own history. Circular enclosures of this type are generally associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland, the enclosed farmsteads known as raths or ringforts, though without excavation the date and function of this particular example remain unconfirmed.

The field lies under tillage and the enclosure leaves no trace whatsoever at ground level, meaning there is nothing for the eye to catch on a walk past the site.