This kind of feature, known as a cropmark, appears when buried ditches or banks cause crops above them to grow at a slightly different rate or colour than the surrounding vegetation, making patterns that only reveal themselves under the right light and in the right season. In this case, the cropmark traces the fosse, a defensive or boundary ditch, of a roughly circular enclosure approximately forty metres in diameter, with an entrance oriented to the east.

The enclosure came to light through aerial photographs taken in July and August 1996. Those photographs also picked up faint linear fosses immediately to the north-west of the main enclosure, suggesting the remains of an associated field system once lay alongside it. A further cropmark enclosure and its own accompanying field system lie approximately two hundred metres to the north-west, hinting that this was not an isolated structure but part of a wider pattern of early settlement or land use in the area. Circular enclosures of this type are found widely across Ireland and are associated with a long span of prehistory and the early medieval period, when ringforts served as enclosed farmsteads. Without excavation it is difficult to date this particular example more precisely, but the presence of an organised field system nearby suggests a functioning agricultural landscape rather than a purely defensive feature.