The ring-barrow at Ballytarsna in County Clare was carefully hachured on the 1840 six-inch map, those fine radiating lines used by early cartographers to indicate raised ground, yet by 1916 it had been omitted entirely. The monument itself, however, was going nowhere.

A ring-barrow is a burial mound of prehistoric origin, typically consisting of a central earthen mound enclosed by a flat platform called a berm and sometimes an outer ditch. The example at Ballytarsna sits on a hilltop amid hilly, marshy pasture and commands clear views of the surrounding landscape, the kind of elevated, visually commanding position that prehistoric communities across Ireland favoured for their dead. The mound measures roughly 13 metres east to west and nearly 14 metres north to south, rising to approximately two metres in height, with a slight hollow at its very centre. That central dip, a few metres across, is not unusual in such structures and may reflect ancient disturbance or simply the natural settling of material over millennia. The encircling berm is noticeably asymmetrical, widening to around five metres on the western side before narrowing to about one and a half metres to the east. The mound is composed largely of earth, with only occasional stones breaking the surface, and while the berm has been colonised by rushes, the mound itself remains relatively clear of vegetation. Roughly 360 metres to the north-west, on a separate hilltop, sits a bowl-barrow, a related but distinct form of burial monument, making this corner of Clare something of a concentration of prehistoric funerary activity.

The surrounding pasture is marshy and the terrain hilly, so anyone making their way to the site should be prepared for wet ground underfoot, particularly in the wetter months. The mound is most easily appreciated from the south-east, where its profile and the surrounding berm read clearly against the open sky.