Sitting atop that outcrop is Ballyneety Castle, also recorded as Whitestown Castle, and encircling the base of the rock is a scarped earthwork, a feature that sits somewhere between natural landform and deliberate human shaping, and which a casual visitor might easily mistake for nothing more than a change in gradient.

When the Archaeological Survey of Ireland examined the site in 2007, surveyors recorded traces of a scarp running from the north-east to the south-west and continuing around from the south-west through west to north, forming a terraced shelf around the foot of the outcrop on which the castle stands. The scarp measured roughly 15 metres in width, with an interior height of about half a metre and an exterior height of nearly three metres. A scarp, in this context, is simply a steep face cut or worn into sloping ground, often used to define or defend a position. Whether this particular scarping was ever an intentional defensive feature or primarily reflects the natural geology of the outcrop is not entirely clear; what is known locally is that the area immediately to the south of the castle was extensively quarried for stone during the mid-twentieth century, which complicates any reading of the original topography. The quarrying has altered the southern edge of the site considerably, meaning the surviving earthwork traces to the north, west, and east represent what was not taken.

The outcrop shows clearly on Ordnance Survey orthophotography from between 2005 and 2012, and on Google Earth imagery from November 2018, appearing as a prominent pale mass against the surrounding land. Visiting the site requires patience with rural Limerick roads and an eye for contour rather than dramatic monument. The earthwork does not announce itself; the terraced scarp is subtle on the ground, and its significance becomes more legible when you understand that the rock beneath the castle walls has been both naturally shaped and actively quarried, leaving what remains as a partial record of a landscape that has been read, used, and altered across several centuries.