That is, almost nothing: the site exists primarily as a faint discolouration in a field of crops, visible only from the air, where the buried outline of a circular enclosure betrays itself through the differential growth of vegetation above it. This kind of feature, known as a crop mark, forms when buried ditches or banks affect how deeply roots can reach into the soil, causing plants to grow taller or shorter, greener or yellower, in patterns that mirror whatever lies beneath. The enclosure at Balheary belongs to this invisible category of archaeology, its geometry legible only through aerial photography.

The site was recorded under the reference DU011-122---- in Ireland's Sites and Monuments Record, with the notes drawing on aerial evidence and a personal communication from T. Condit. The crop mark suggests not just the enclosure itself but also other features that may point to a broader field system in the area. A second feature, a ring-ditch, a circular ditched monument often associated with prehistoric burial or ritual activity, is visible to the north and carries its own separate record (DU011-123----). The ground in this part of the demesne rises perceptibly near the site, sitting within a field that slopes gradually southward towards the Broadmeadow river, a watercourse that drains eastward through north County Dublin towards the estuary at Swords. The gentle topography, the proximity to water, and the cluster of features all hint at a landscape that was organised and occupied long before the demesne itself was laid out.

For anyone who makes their way to the area, the field in question offers no upstanding remains and no interpretation board. What is there is the slight rise in the ground and, if the season and crop are right, the ghost of the enclosure emerging from the surrounding vegetation. The site is most legible from an elevated vantage point or, as the record suggests, from the air. Walking the field edge along the slope towards the Broadmeadow gives some sense of the local topography, and knowing that two distinct archaeological features were mapped here, one possibly domestic or agricultural in function, the other potentially funerary, gives the unremarkable-looking ground a rather different quality.