Captured in recent OS aerial coverage, a system of irregular fields spreads across the hillside here, visible both in the rough, unimproved pasture climbing the slope and in the more cultivated ground to the north of a cashel. A cashel, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a stone-walled enclosure of early medieval origin, typically circular, used to enclose a farmstead or settlement. That the field system extends around and beyond it suggests a landscape shaped over a very long period, with different phases of land use overlapping one another in ways that are still being unpicked.

The record for this site was compiled by Geraldine Stout and Padraig Clancy, with a revised upload dated 14 April 2018, as part of a broader archaeological survey drawing on Ordnance Survey coverage at OS 10:4735. The irregularity of the field boundaries is itself significant. Regular, rectilinear field systems tend to indicate planned, often post-medieval enclosure; irregular ones are more likely to reflect incremental, piecemeal working of the land across generations, adapting to the natural contours of the hill rather than imposing a grid upon them. The relationship between these fields and the cashel has not been fully resolved, but their proximity implies that whoever farmed this ground was living within or close to that enclosure, and that the two features are likely part of the same broad period of activity.

The site sits within the Rathdown barony, a stretch of upland and coastal territory south of Dublin that contains a notable concentration of early medieval remains. Access to the area will depend on rights of way and the goodwill of landowners, as much of this landscape is working farmland. The distinction between the unimproved pasture on the hill and the improved ground below is worth paying attention to when visiting; it is precisely in the rougher, less cultivated areas that the old field boundaries tend to survive above ground as low earthen banks or ridges. On a low winter sun or in the long raking light of an evening, those subtle undulations become considerably easier to read.