In 1955, a sand extraction operation on a ridge in Oldtown, County Kildare, broke open something that had been undisturbed for thousands of years. Three burials came to light, spaced roughly seven metres apart along the summit of the ridge, each accompanied by ceramic vessels of the kind associated with Early Bronze Age funerary practice in Ireland. That they were found at all was a matter of chance; that they no longer exist is a matter of record.

The three burials each told a slightly different story. Two were crouched inhumations, a burial posture common in the Early Bronze Age where the body was drawn into a foetal position before interment. Both were accompanied by bowl food vessels, the round-bottomed decorated pottery typical of the period, thought to have held offerings for the dead. One of these also contained cremated bone alongside the inhumed remains, a combination that suggests the boundary between burial rites was not always rigid. The third burial included a vase food vessel and a vase urn, a pairing that points again to the same broad cultural horizon. The finds were recorded by the National Museum of Ireland in 1955. By 1982, however, when the site was examined again, the ridge had been completely quarried away. Nothing remained. The burials exist now only in a catalogue entry and whatever the museum retains from the original discovery.