In a field at Barberstown in County Kildare, the outlines of the dead are only visible from the air. A cluster of nine ditch-barrows sits together in the same parcel of land, their circular forms imperceptible at ground level but legible as cropmarks when seen from above, where differences in soil moisture and crop growth betray the presence of buried ditches beneath.

A ditch-barrow is a burial monument of prehistoric origin, consisting of a central mound or flat area enclosed by a circular ditch, sometimes with an outer bank. They are a relatively common feature of the Irish archaeological landscape, though groups of this size, sometimes called barrow cemeteries, suggest a place that held significance across generations. One of the nine monuments at Barberstown measures approximately thirteen metres in diameter, and its eastern edge is cut across by a later field boundary, a reminder that the landscape has been continually reworked long after the original use of these sites was forgotten. The cropmarks were identified in aerial imagery captured on 28 June 2018 via Google Earth, with the barrow cemetery visible as a cluster of faint circular traces in the field.