It is the sort of feature that vanishes entirely from the surface of the land, leaving nothing to see for centuries until a road scheme cuts through the right field at the right depth.

The pit came to light during archaeological investigations carried out ahead of Phase 3 improvements to the N2 between Monaghan town and Emyvale. Initial testing identified two small pits sitting roughly a metre apart on the slope. When excavators returned under a separate excavation licence to examine them properly, one turned out to be nothing more than a natural hollow in the ground. The other, measuring 0.8 metres in diameter and 0.12 metres deep, was something else entirely. Roasting pits of this kind typically functioned by heating stones in a fire until they were hot enough to cook meat or other food when placed in contact with it, a technique with deep prehistoric roots across Ireland and Britain. The hazel charcoal found here suggests the fire was fuelled with coppiced or scrubby woodland growth, the sort of material readily available across this kind of undulating glacial landscape, shaped by the same drumlin ridges, those smooth oval hills deposited by retreating ice, that define the terrain across much of Monaghan today.