This one in Rossanean, County Kerry, offers nothing so obliging. At ground level, there is simply an uneven surface, a slight rumpling of the earth that most walkers would pass without a second thought. The site only truly exists, in any legible sense, when seen from the air.

An aerial photograph taken in August 1986 revealed a small, faint irregular feature within the northern sector of a rath, the circular earthwork enclosure that was the standard form of enclosed farmstead in early medieval Ireland. Crossed by east-west cultivation ridges, the feature has been interpreted as a possible hut site, the kind of modest dwelling that would once have housed a farming family within the protected boundary of the rath. The cultivation ridges themselves, raised parallel beds used to improve drainage and soil workability, add a further layer of activity to the landscape, though whether they predate, postdate, or overlap with the hut is not clear. What the aerial photograph captured was essentially a palimpsest, one use of the land written faintly over another, legible only under the right conditions of light and angle. On the ground, inspectors noted nothing more than the uneven surface, a texture in the soil that hints at disturbance without explaining it.