It took an aerial camera, not a cartographer on the ground, to finally bring it to light. Ring-barrows are circular burial monuments, typically comprising a low mound enclosed by a ditch and sometimes an outer bank, and they belong to a funerary tradition stretching back into later prehistory. What makes this particular example quietly interesting is not so much the monument itself as the circumstances of its discovery, and the fact that it sits within a larger complex of similar features in the same low-lying landscape.

The site was identified in 1986 during the Bruff aerial photographic survey, when the monument showed up as a circular cropmark, reference Bruff 15607: AP 4/3665. Cropmarks form when buried features affect the growth of vegetation above them, making the outlines of ditches or banks legible from the air even when nothing is visible at ground level. The earthwork subsequently appeared on an Ordnance Survey Ireland orthoimage captured between 2005 and 2012, and again on a Google Earth image dated 25 March 2017, by which point it could be measured more precisely. The visible earthwork has a diameter of approximately eleven metres. The record was compiled by Alison McQueen and Vera Rahilly and uploaded in September 2020.

The monument sits on low-lying, wet pasture at Ballyphilip in County Limerick, a landscape cut through by land drains and watercourses, which gives some indication of the conditions underfoot. Access to the field itself would depend on landowner permission, and the waterlogged ground means that timing matters considerably; drier months are likely to make the approach more manageable. The earthwork is subtle, and without the aerial imagery for reference it could easily be missed among the drainage channels and soft pasture. Those who do seek it out are best advised to study the Google Earth orthoimage from March 2017 beforehand, and to bear in mind that this single barrow is one feature within a broader complex, meaning the surrounding area repays careful attention rather than a glance at any one spot.