From the air, a series of low, grassed-over banks emerged across the landscape, the ghostly outline of a field system that would be almost invisible to anyone walking the ground. Not all of these banks are ancient; those close to Barnaderg Castle are more likely the product of relatively modern drainage work. But to the south-west and west of the enclosure, the picture changes. There, a collection of small, irregular fields, covering roughly 200 metres north-east to south-west and 150 metres north-west to south-east, preserves traces of a much older agricultural arrangement, including faint ridge and furrow cultivation, the corrugated pattern left in soil by repeated ploughing in narrow strips.

The field system sits within a cluster of early monuments. A cashel, a type of stone-walled circular enclosure typically associated with early medieval settlement and farming, lies only about 50 metres to the north-east. Barnaderg Castle itself is approximately 300 metres to the south-east. Together, these three features suggest a landscape that was organised and worked across multiple periods, with the irregular field boundaries possibly predating the castle by a considerable stretch. The aerial reconnaissance that identified the banks was carried out as part of the Cambridge University Committee for Aerial Photography programme, a long-running project that documented Irish and British archaeological landscapes from the air during the mid-twentieth century.