The only way it has ever been seen is from the air, where differences in soil moisture and crop growth betray the outline of buried ditches beneath. This kind of feature, known as a cropmark, forms when buried archaeology affects how plants grow directly above it, so that from altitude a ghost of the original structure appears etched into the grain or grass.

The northern fosse, the term for a defensive or boundary ditch, meets the edge of a smaller, sub-rectangular enclosure nearby. That adjoining feature was substantial enough to appear on the 1900 revised six-inch Ordnance Survey map, and appears to represent a reclaimed field carved out of surrounding marshland. The larger enclosure may share a similar origin, possibly related to the programme of land reclamation that reshaped much of Ireland's wetland and marginal ground during the nineteenth century. If so, what looks from above like an ancient enclosure may in fact be a relatively recent intervention in the landscape, its regularity and scale a product of agricultural improvement rather than early settlement or defence. The uncertainty itself is part of what makes the site interesting: aerial photography revealed the shape, but cannot settle the question of what it was for or when it was made.