When ground was being prepared in 2002, two field boundary ditches came to light at Rath-Healy, and the following year a formal excavation was carried out before the bypass work could proceed. What emerged was modest but quietly informative: two parallel ditches running northwest to southeast, cut through compact dark-brown sandy silt with occasional stones, and differing slightly from one another in profile. The first measured two metres wide and only 0.2 metres deep, with a flat base; the second was narrower at 1.2 metres but deeper at 0.42 metres, with a rounded base. The difference in cross-section between the two suggests they may not have been dug at the same time, or were intended to serve slightly different purposes, though no firm conclusions were drawn.

Dating these kinds of agricultural features is notoriously difficult. Field boundary ditches, essentially the earthwork predecessors of hedgerows and stone walls used to divide and manage agricultural land, tend not to contain the pottery sherds or animal bones that allow archaeologists to pin a date to a site with confidence. In this case, the excavators found no such dateable material, and the boundaries were cautiously assessed as probably post-1700 in date. That might seem to diminish their interest, but it places them within the period of intensifying agricultural reorganisation across Munster, when landlord estates were being consolidated and older, more irregular field patterns were giving way to more deliberately laid-out boundaries. The other excavated features found nearby at Rath-Healy suggest this small area repays attention as a wider agricultural landscape rather than an isolated find.