No bank rises above the surface, no stones break the grass. The only way to see it clearly is from above, where a faint but legible ring appears in the vegetation, a ghost written in differential crop growth rather than in earth or masonry.

What satellite imagery reveals is a roughly circular enclosure approximately 30 metres in diameter, defined by a wide, deep fosse, a type of defensive or boundary ditch, running around its circumference and measuring about 4 metres across. Enclosures of this kind are common across the Irish landscape in one form or another, ranging from the earthen ringforts of the early medieval period to earlier prehistoric boundaries, but the majority of those that survive above ground have been recorded for generations. This one came to attention only when Jean-Charles Caillère identified and reported it from satellite imagery, a reminder that the Irish archaeological landscape still holds features that conventional survey has not yet caught up with. The cropmark effect that makes it visible occurs when buried ditches retain more moisture than the surrounding soil, causing the plants above them to grow fractionally taller or greener, differences that only become apparent at altitude and in the right season.