The 1932 edition of the OS six-inch map marked the feature using hachures, the fine lines cartographers use to indicate slopes or earthworks, which gave it the visual suggestion of an ancient enclosure or earthen monument. It was the kind of mark that could catch the eye of anyone scanning for traces of earlier settlement.

When someone went to look in 1983, the reality was more prosaic. The hollow turned out to be a disused sand or gravel pit, dug at some point after 1700, most likely as a practical local source of material for building, drainage, or road repair. Such pits were commonplace in rural Ireland, worked by hand and then quietly abandoned when they ceased to be useful. Without the mapmaker's hachures drawing attention to it, it might never have been looked at twice. The gap between what a map suggests and what the ground actually holds is one of the more instructive small lessons in landscape reading.