At Drinaun in County Galway, a low rise in flat pastureland marks the site of what was once, most likely, a circular enclosure roughly forty metres across. No earthwork remains, no bank, no ditch, no upstanding stonework. The ground offers nothing to the eye that would distinguish it from the surrounding fields.

What we know of this place comes largely from cartography rather than excavation. The third edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map, published in 1932, still recorded the arc of this enclosure curving from west to north-north-east, enough of a trace at that point to merit marking. Circular enclosures of this kind are among the most common archaeological monument types in Ireland, typically interpreted as the remains of raths or ringforts, the enclosed farmsteads of early medieval rural life, though some examples are considerably older. By the time the map was made, the monument was already diminished; at some point after that survey, whatever remained was levelled entirely. The 1932 map entry is now, in practical terms, the last reliable record of the feature above ground.