In a field of reclaimed pastureland at Shanclogh in County Galway, a slight depression in the ground, ringed by stones, was once substantial enough to attract investigation. What investigators found in 1968, when the site was examined, was the outline of an old unroofed cart shed, the kind of utilitarian outbuilding that once punctuated the edges of farmland across the west of Ireland, used for storing wheeled vehicles and equipment out of the worst of the weather.

By the time that inspection took place, the structure had long since lost its roof and whatever timber framing it may have carried. The stones defining its perimeter were sunk into the ground, which is how the feature registered at all against the surrounding pasture. Reclaimed land, improved over generations by drainage and grazing, has a tendency to absorb and level the smaller traces of agricultural life, leaving only the most stubborn anomalies. This cart shed was stubborn enough to survive as a soil mark and a scatter of stones, but only just. No visible surface trace now survives at the site.