This site in Mitchelstowndown, County Limerick, sits just south of the Morningstar River, the small watercourse that marks the boundary between Mitchelstowndown and Mitchelstowndown East. There is nothing to see at ground level. What gives it away is a cropmark, the faint differential in how crops or grass grow over buried or compacted ground, which betrays the outline of something rectangular beneath the surface.

The site first came to light in aerial photographs taken on 3 November 1984 as part of survey work for the Bórd Gáis Éireann Curraleigh West to Limerick gas pipeline. Cropmarks of this kind are a standard tool in landscape archaeology; where soil has been disturbed by walls, ditches, or compacted floors, vegetation above tends to grow differently, either more lushly or more sparsely, depending on moisture retention. The rectangular outline photographed here, catalogued as Site 249 on the BGE survey, was later confirmed by Digital Globe orthoimages taken between 2011 and 2013 and by Google Earth imagery. Compiled by Fiona Rooney and uploaded to the national record in September 2021, the monument does not appear on the Ordnance Survey Ireland six-inch maps, but what the 1840 edition of those same maps does show, at this precise location, is a building with an attached field boundary. The working interpretation is that this earthwork represents what remains of that structure, levelled at some point after 1840 and since absorbed back into the surrounding pasture. About 90 metres to the northeast lie possible barrows, low mounded burial monuments of prehistoric type, though these are recorded separately and their relationship to this site remains unclear.

There is no formal access, no signage, and nothing to orient a visitor on the ground. The site sits in working farmland, and the rectangular form that defines it is not perceptible without aerial perspective or a good understanding of what subtle variations in grass colour and growth might indicate. Those interested in cropmark archaeology would be better served by consulting the BGE aerial photograph and Google Earth orthoimages referenced in the national monument record than by attempting a visit. If you do find yourself in the area, the Morningstar River boundary to the north at least gives a geographical anchor, and a dry summer, when soil moisture differences are most pronounced, is when cropmarks of this kind are most likely to read clearly, even from a moderate elevation on nearby higher ground.