At Gortaclare in County Clare, a small rectangular enclosure sitting on level ground to the east of a farmyard had been formally listed as an archaeological monument, appearing in official records through the 1990s under the broad category of "Enclosure", a term that in an Irish context can suggest anything from a prehistoric ringfort to an early medieval ecclesiastical boundary. When someone finally went to look in 1997, the reality was rather more prosaic: a haggard, measuring roughly 22 by 23 metres, defined by a single well-built drystone wall.

A haggard is a stackyard, the enclosed area on a farm where hay or grain was stored after the harvest, typically separated from the main farmyard to reduce fire risk. This one had already been noted on the 1916 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, shown sitting beside a farmhouse, which places its existence firmly within the period of working agricultural Clare rather than any earlier era. The drystone construction, fitted together without mortar, is entirely consistent with the building traditions of the region and the period. What the site offers, then, is less a window into prehistory than a small lesson in how landscape features get recorded, classified, and occasionally misread before anyone has had a chance to walk over and look properly.