There is a small circular enclosure in the townland of Coolbunnia, County Waterford, that you could walk directly over without knowing it was there. Measuring roughly five metres across, it sits on a shelf of ground at the crest of a steep south-east-facing slope, tucked into the kind of terrain where ancient earthworks often survive precisely because the land was never worth breaking up for tillage. At ground level, in the pasture that covers it now, it leaves no impression on the eye whatsoever.

What revealed it was aerial photography, specifically a vertical aerial photograph taken by Waterford County Council. Seen from above, the circular form becomes legible, and something else becomes clear too: the enclosure is conjoined with a second, neighbouring enclosure immediately to its south. The two sit side by side like adjoining rooms. Circular enclosures of this kind are among the most commonly recorded archaeological features across Ireland, typically interpreted as the remains of ringforts, the enclosed farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, though smaller examples like this one can be harder to categorise with confidence. At five metres in diameter, this is a notably compact feature, and the pairing with an adjacent enclosure adds a layer of complexity that the surviving evidence does not fully explain.