On a south-east-facing slope in the upper Tay river valley, on the Comeragh Mountains of County Waterford, a quiet patch of ground holds about twenty low stone mounds that most walkers would pass without a second glance. These are clearance cairns, the accumulated result of someone, at some point in the prehistoric or early historic past, methodically pulling stones from the earth to make ground workable. The act of farming can leave a surprisingly durable mark.

Spread across roughly four hectares of grass-covered hillside, the cairns range from two to five metres in diameter and rise no more than half a metre above the surrounding ground. They sit between two streams, which would have made the location practical for whoever cleared and worked this land. Alongside the cairns there is evidence of a hut-site, suggesting that this was not simply a field worked from a distance but a place where someone lived, or at least sheltered, while doing so. Together, the cairns and the hut-site form a small but coherent picture of upland land use, a community or individual making a sustained effort to cultivate a slope that the mountain climate would not have made easy. The Comeraghs are not the most forgiving terrain, and the presence of this much deliberate clearance work points to real pressure on productive land at whatever period this activity took place.