Others disappear so completely that the only evidence they ever existed is a cartographer's annotation and a few lines in an archaeological record. At Petitswood in County Westmeath, an earthwork once sat on a gentle rise in pasture, substantial enough that it earned a place on Larkin's detailed 1808 map of the county. Today, a modern bungalow occupies the same ground.

Francis Larkin's 1808 county map is considered a reasonably reliable record of the Irish landscape at the turn of the nineteenth century, and the fact that this feature was marked at all suggests it was still a visible presence at that time. Earthworks of this kind are broad category, encompassing everything from ringforts and enclosures to the remains of field systems or burial monuments, and without further excavation it is impossible to say with certainty what function this one served. By 1980, surveyors visiting the site found no surface remains whatsoever, meaning the monument had been levelled entirely in the intervening 170-odd years, most likely through agricultural activity or later development. Aerial photography has confirmed what fieldwork already suggested: there is simply nothing left to see.