What gives it away is a cropmark, the faint but legible signal that buried archaeology leaves on the surface of growing grass or grain. When buried ditches or banks alter how moisture and nutrients move through soil, the plants above them respond differently, and from altitude those differences resolve into shapes, circles most often, the outlines of enclosures that once organised human life at ground level.

The enclosure at Ballycurry was identified in aerial photographs taken in July 2006, during a season when dry summers tend to sharpen cropmark visibility considerably. Circular enclosures of this kind are a common feature of the Irish landscape, though their dates and functions vary widely. Some are ringforts, the enclosed farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Others are earlier, belonging to the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Without excavation, it is impossible to say with confidence which category this one falls into, and no such work appears to have been carried out here. The demesne setting adds a further layer of complexity, since later landscaping and land management associated with a formal estate can obscure or disturb earlier features while also, paradoxically, preserving them under long-undisturbed pasture.