But at Coolnanoglagh in County Limerick, that curve is likely the most legible surviving trace of an enclosure that once measured roughly fifty metres across its east-west axis and thirty metres from north to south. The hedge appears to follow the ghost of a boundary that was already being erased long before anyone thought to record it.

The enclosure was documented on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1924, where it appeared as an embanked oval, the kind of earthwork, typically a raised bank defining a roughly circular or oval area, that archaeologists associate with early medieval settlement, stock management, or ritual use across Ireland. By the time Denis Power compiled the record in 2011, the monument had been levelled. What remained was an arc of low rise running from west to northwest, standing only about fifteen centimetres above the surrounding ground level and spanning roughly two and a half metres in width. That is barely a ripple in a field. The interior, whatever it once enclosed, lies under open pasture with no surface indication of what might remain beneath.

The site sits on a northeast-facing slope, which in practical terms means the light falls across it in a way that can, on the right morning, throw even slight changes in ground level into modest relief. The most useful time to look is in low winter or early spring sunshine, when the grass is short and shadows are long enough to pick out subtle earthworks that disappear entirely in summer growth. The easiest navigational aid is the hedge itself on the eastern side, which curves away from the straight lines you would expect and marks the enclosure's former edge more clearly than the earthwork does. A recently constructed house lies immediately to the west of the site, which gives some sense of how close modern development has come to what little survives. There is no formal access or signage, and the land is in agricultural use, so any visit would require permission from the landowner.