Roughly 35 metres across and sub-circular in shape, this earthwork enclosure would pass unnoticed by anyone walking the surrounding land, its contours too subtle for the eye to read at ground level. It takes lidar, a remote-sensing technology that strips away vegetation and surface noise to reveal the bare shape of the earth beneath, to bring it clearly into view.

Enclosures of this general type are among the most widespread, and least understood, features of the Irish landscape. Some are the remains of ringforts, the farmstead enclosures that housed rural families during the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Others may be earlier, associated with Bronze Age or Iron Age activity, or later, connected with enclosing land for agricultural purposes. Without excavation, the precise date and function of the Ballynacarriga example remains open. What is known is its form: a roughly circular boundary, about the diameter of a modest country house with its yard, sitting quietly in the Cork landscape and brought to wider attention through the work of Colm Chambers.