That combination, a cartographic ghost and an unbroken tradition of non-interference, is part of what makes the site at Bunnadober worth a second look.

The 1838 six-inch OS map recorded a circular embanked enclosure roughly fifteen metres in diameter on a gentle rise, with wet ground falling away to the south-east. By the time later surveys were conducted, it had disappeared from the maps entirely, though the ground itself tells a partial story. When the site was inspected in 1998, a slightly raised D-shaped feature, approximately ten metres north to south, was still visible, possibly the remnants of a mound, though it was largely obscured by clearance debris by that point. A field fence running north to south cuts across the rise and borders the feature on its eastern side, with no corresponding continuation visible on the far side of the fence, suggesting either truncation or that whatever was once there has been absorbed into the field boundary over time. The farmyard sits about thirty metres to the north. Enclosures of this kind, low earthen banks encircling a defined interior space, are found widely across Ireland and can relate to early medieval settlement, burial, or ritual activity, though the specific origins of this one are not recorded.

What kept it intact, at least in part, appears to be the hawthorn. In Irish tradition, lone hawthorn trees, particularly those growing on or near ancient earthworks, are associated with the otherworld, and to cut one down is widely considered to invite misfortune. The trees at Bunnadober carried exactly that reputation locally, and the site was left undisturbed as a result. It is a small irony that the feature survived not because of any formal protection but because of a belief that predates the maps that recorded it.