That invisibility from above is part of what makes them curious. Features that once organised the lives of people on this ground have sunk so thoroughly into the field that only a visit on foot, with some patience and a low angle of light, would reveal the slight ridges that remain.

A ringfort, to borrow the simplest definition, is a roughly circular enclosure bounded by one or more earthen banks and ditches, used during the early medieval period in Ireland as a farmstead or settlement. What sits beside this one at Balleagny is slightly harder to categorise. The larger of the two enclosures is subrectangular in plan and measures approximately 25 metres east to west by 21 metres north to south. The smaller, positioned to the south-west, runs roughly 13.7 metres by 11.5 metres. Both are defined by low earthen banks. They may have served as annexes to the ringfort itself, perhaps enclosing animals or providing additional working space directly attached to the settlement. Alternatively, they could be remnants of an older or separate field system, their relationship to the ringfort coincidental rather than functional. The honest answer is that the evidence does not settle the question either way.

The site sits on a low rise with good views in all directions, which is itself a reminder that early medieval farmers were no less attentive to their surroundings than anyone who came after them. The enclosures are not dramatic features, but their ambiguity is genuinely interesting: two small, earthen shapes in a field that could tell one story or another, and currently tell neither with any certainty.