In reclaimed pasture in the townland of Ballyroe Lower, a ghostly circle roughly thirty metres across appears in aerial photography not as a physical feature but as a cropmark, a subtle variation in vegetation colour and growth that betrays something buried beneath the surface. The circle, defined by a fosse (a ditch dug to enclose or delineate a space), shows no trace whatsoever on the Ordnance Survey Ireland historic six-inch maps, meaning whatever it represents had already lost its surface expression by the time those surveys were carried out in the nineteenth century.

The site was identified not by field archaeologists with trowels, but by analysts at the Archaeological Survey of Ireland working through Microsoft Bing aerial photography. A cropmark of this kind forms when a buried ditch or bank affects how deeply plant roots can grow, causing crops or grasses above it to respond differently, greening earlier or browning sooner depending on moisture retention. The circular shape, approximately thirty metres in diameter, appears on Digital Globe orthoimages taken between 2011 and 2013 and is also visible on Google Earth imagery from the same period. The record was compiled by Martin Fitzpatrick and uploaded in September 2021. Roughly 135 metres to the south-east lies a separate mound recorded under its own monument number, suggesting this corner of Ballyroe Lower may contain more than one phase or type of early activity, though the relationship between the two features is not yet established.

The site sits around 95 metres south of the townland boundary with Ballinanima, within what is now ordinary agricultural land. There is nothing to see at ground level; the fosse that defines the circle has long since silted and been ploughed over. A visitor standing in the field would have no indication they were looking at anything of archaeological note. The only way to appreciate it is through the aerial record, which is publicly accessible via Google Earth. Late summer, when grass is under stress and cropmarks are at their most legible, is when this kind of feature tends to show most clearly from above.