The example uncovered at Farrankelly in County Wicklow is unusually slight, measuring just 3.5 metres across internally and barely 0.2 metres deep, its modest dimensions likely the result of centuries of ploughing steadily shaving it down. That it survived at all is partly a matter of timing; it came to light in 2020 during the construction of a residential development, the kind of circumstance that as often destroys prehistoric remains as reveals them.

The excavation, carried out by archaeologist Muireann Ní Cheallacháin for IAC Archaeology under licence 17E0292, produced a layered picture of funerary activity. The ditch itself held a main silty sand fill, but it was the deposits recorded above and within this fill that proved most telling. Four primary charcoal deposits lay along the base of the ditch, and two further charcoal layers sat above them, though none of these contained burnt bone. Above the main fill, however, three distinct cremation deposits were identified, each with frequent charcoal and moderate quantities of burnt bone, the physical traces of bodies reduced by fire and then placed here. One of these deposits also yielded a possible heat-affected flint, a fragment that had likely been in or near a pyre. Notably, the cremated remains were not placed in individual pits but appear to have been laid directly onto the already-backfilled ditch, suggesting the monument went through more than one phase of use. A small circular pit recorded less than a metre to the east of the ditch contained charcoal but no bone, and may have played some supporting role in the burial rites, though its precise function remains unclear.