This one, on high ground near Ballinlegane in County Cork, offers none of that. It exists, as far as anyone can tell from the surface, as ordinary farmland, a field that has grown barley and will grow barley again. The only evidence of something older beneath the soil came not from excavation or survey on foot, but from a single aerial photograph taken on 20 June 1993.

The photograph was shot by BKS Surveys Ltd during aerial work for the proposed Glanmire-Watergrasshill Bypass. Examining the image, archaeologists identified a soilmark, a phenomenon where buried features alter the moisture or nutrient content of the earth above them, causing crops or soil to show subtly different colours when seen from the air. Here, a lighter band traces a roughly square outline, approximately 40 by 40 metres, on a south-facing slope with extensive views across the surrounding landscape. The shape is consistent with an enclosed settlement or farmstead of the kind built across Ireland during the early medieval period, though without excavation, its date and precise function cannot be confirmed. On the day of the site visit, a high crop of barley was growing across the field, and there was nothing whatsoever visible at ground level. The enclosure had retreated entirely back into the earth.