A circular embanked feature spotted in an aerial photograph of Caherogan, in County Clare, had every appearance of something worth investigating, the kind of rounded, defined outline that can signal an ancient enclosure or a site of archaeological interest. When inspected on the ground in 2002, however, it turned out to be something considerably more modest: a small, disused quarry.

The site appears on the Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, hachured and labelled plainly as "Quarry (disused)". Hachuring, a cartographic technique using short lines to indicate slopes or excavated edges, gave the feature enough visual weight on the map to complement its appearance from the air. What looked, at altitude, like a possible ringfort or enclosure was simply the circular scar left by quarrying activity, its embanked edges the accumulated spoil or natural lip of extraction rather than any deliberately constructed boundary. It is a small reminder that not every circular earthwork in the Irish landscape carries a dramatic prehistory.