In the townland of Darrary in County Galway, a hachured marking on the 1932 edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map, the kind of shading cartographers used to indicate a hollow or excavated feature in the landscape, turned out on inspection in 1985 to be nothing more dramatic than a disused sand pit. The pit itself is unremarkable; what lingers is the quiet reminder that maps record a moment, and the land keeps changing after the ink dries.