Near Ballysadare Bay in County Sligo, a ringfort once occupied a stretch of low, gently rolling ground, its circular earthen bank enclosing a domestic space in the way that tens of thousands of such structures once did across Ireland. A rath, as these sites are commonly called, was typically the farmstead of an early medieval family, its raised perimeter offering a degree of shelter and a clear boundary rather than serious fortification. This one is gone. The ground has been levelled, and nothing remains above the surface.

What makes the loss traceable, if not recoverable, is the cartographic record. The first edition Ordnance Survey six-inch map, produced in Ireland during the 1830s, shows the site as a clear circular enclosure, the kind of neat ring that surveyors of that period consistently marked when earthworks were still legible in the landscape. By the time later mapping was carried out, only partial remains were visible. At some point after that, whatever was left was removed entirely, most likely through agricultural improvement or land clearance of the kind that quietly eliminated a significant proportion of Ireland's ringfort heritage over the course of the twentieth century. The site at Cartronabree now exists primarily as a coordinate and a comparison between two maps made generations apart.