Beneath the surface of what is now ordinary tillage land, the ghost of an ancient enclosure survives just well enough to cast a faint shadow in the soil, one that became visible when satellite imagery captured the landscape on a summer day in August 2022. What appeared was an oval ring, roughly 33 metres across its north-east to south-west axis, defined by a fosse, that is, a defensive or boundary ditch, whose circular path shows up as a cropmark. Cropmarks form when buried features affect the growth of crops above them; a filled-in ditch, richer in moisture and organic matter than the surrounding ground, can produce a distinct stripe or curve of lusher, darker vegetation that stands out clearly when viewed from above, even when nothing whatsoever is visible at ground level.

The enclosure was identified and reported by Jean-Charles Caillère, whose observation drew attention to a feature that might otherwise have gone unrecorded for considerably longer. The fosse does not appear as a complete ring; the section running from the west-south-west around to the north is not visible in the imagery, either because that portion was more thoroughly disturbed by cultivation, or because the conditions on that particular August day did not favour its expression as a cropmark. The site does not stand alone in this part of Kilkenny. A second enclosure lies approximately 190 metres to the north-west, a proximity that suggests this stretch of land was once a more structured and occupied landscape than its present agricultural appearance implies. Enclosures of this kind are among the most common monument types in Ireland, often associated with early medieval settlement, though without excavation it is impossible to say more about date or function at this particular site.