That photograph, part of the Geological Survey of Ireland series, revealed not one but several distinct enclosures grouped around the nearby ringfort known as Ballyvesta Fort, none of which had left any obvious impression on the historical record before that moment.

What the photograph showed, and what subsequent ground inspection confirmed, is a set of related earthworks of varying shapes and degrees of survival. Immediately to the south-west of Ballyvesta Fort sits a circular enclosure roughly 26 metres across, marked at ground level by a very low earthen bank, now cut through on its eastern side by a post and wire fence. Further south-west again, a rectangular enclosure measuring approximately 38.6 metres by 19.5 metres is still legible, though only through differential grass growth, the subtle variation in colour and texture that occurs when buried features alter the soil beneath a modern field. To the south-east of the ringfort, a larger roughly rectangular enclosure, around 50 metres along its north-west to south-east axis, shows as a narrow trench or dip of darker grass barely a metre wide. Its western side was once defined by a field boundary that has since been levelled. A circular enclosure originally adjoining this eastern group has left no trace whatsoever at ground level.

A ringfort, to borrow a general description, is a roughly circular enclosed settlement typical of early medieval Ireland, usually defined by an earthen bank and ditch. The fact that these enclosures cluster so closely around Ballyvesta Fort raises the possibility that they are broadly contemporary with it, perhaps serving as associated field systems or activity areas. The western boundary of the south-eastern enclosure being formed by a levelled field boundary is a reminder of how much has been quietly erased across the Irish landscape over centuries of agricultural use, leaving only faint chromatic differences in grass to hint at what was once there.