There are around thirty of them, subcircular, oval, and irregularly shaped, scattered across what is otherwise ordinary meadow and pastureland. To a modern eye scanning that map, the effect is quietly puzzling, as though the ground had been pocked by some forgotten industry or disturbance.

The explanation is relatively mundane but no less interesting for that. The depressions mark a series of disused sand and gravel pits, most likely worked during the nineteenth or early twentieth century. Small-scale extraction of this kind was once commonplace across rural Ireland, with local pits supplying material for road metalling, building foundations, and general farm use. The pits at Carrownagappul were presumably dug to serve similar practical needs in the surrounding area. By the time the landscape was mapped in 1932, the workings had already fallen out of use, and most have since been infilled, leaving little visible trace at ground level today.