That something, recorded simply as Macduagh's Tree, has since vanished entirely. No visible surface trace survives. What remains is the name, the location, and the intriguing fact that a tree, or at least the memory of one, was formally catalogued as a monument.

The tree was associated with the monastic complex at Kilmacduagh, a substantial early medieval site in the south of County Galway traditionally linked to Saint Colman mac Duagh, a sixth and seventh-century hermit who became the founding figure of a bishopric here. Sacred or significant trees had a long history in Irish monastic and pre-Christian tradition, sometimes marking boundaries, sometimes serving as focal points for veneration, and sometimes doing both at once. The fact that this one stood precisely at a road junction, a liminal point where paths converge, is consistent with that broader pattern. The Ordnance Survey's decision to name it suggests it was still a recognisable landmark, or at least a recognised memory, when surveyors were working in the area during the nineteenth century. It has since been granted a preservation order under the National Monuments Acts, which is a quietly curious circumstance: legal protection extended to something that no longer has any physical form.

Visitors to Kilmacduagh will find the round tower and the ruined cathedral easily enough, and the wider monastic enclosure repays a slow walk. The spot where the tree once stood, at the junction to the south-east, offers nothing to see, but knowing where to look is its own kind of reward.