It only came to light because of the right combination of dry weather and low-growing crops.

The site was first recorded in August 1991, when an aerial survey captured what is known as a positive cropmark, a phenomenon in which buried features such as ditches or pits cause the vegetation above them to grow more vigorously, typically because a filled-in ditch retains more moisture and nutrients than the surrounding subsoil. The resulting variation in plant colour and height becomes readable from the air, particularly during dry spells when the contrast is most pronounced. The photograph in question, catalogued as GB91.EI.21 and recorded by Gillian Barrett, shows a circular enclosure defined by a fosse, meaning a ditch, likely cut into the earth to demarcate a boundary. Circular enclosures of this type are commonly associated with early medieval ringforts, which served as farmsteads and settlement sites across Ireland from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries, though without excavation it is not possible to say with confidence what period or purpose this particular example belongs to. The record was later compiled by archaeologist Geraldine Stout and uploaded to the national database in August 2011.

Because the enclosure exists only as a cropmark, there is nothing to see at ground level. The field itself gives no indication of what lies beneath it. Those with an interest in the site would do best to seek out the aerial photograph through the relevant national archive rather than expect anything visible on a visit to the area. It is the kind of place that rewards desk research more than a walk in a field, a reminder that a great deal of Irish archaeology remains known only from the air, waiting on the particular patience of dry summers and attentive eyes.