There is nothing to see at ground level, no earthwork, no ridge, no dip in the land. The only evidence that something was ever there comes from the air, where a cropmark betrays the outline of a buried structure that the soil above it has quietly preserved.

Cropmarks form when buried features, walls, ditches, or filled pits, affect the moisture and nutrients available to whatever is growing above them. In dry conditions especially, crops over a filled ditch tend to grow taller and greener, while those over a buried wall may be stunted and pale. Seen from above, these differences in growth trace out shapes that are otherwise imperceptible. The oval enclosure at Ballybeg was identified in precisely this way, visible on aerial photography held by the Geological Survey of Ireland. Oval and circular enclosures of this kind are relatively common across Ireland, and while many are the remains of early medieval ring-forts or settlement sites, the specific character and date of this particular example remain unknown. Without excavation, it is impossible to say what activity once took place within it, or when.