Near Richardstown in County Cork, a site recorded simply as a quarry has the quiet distinction of being a location that, on closer inspection, probably should not have been recorded at all.

The site was listed as a quarry in two successive national inventories, first in 1988 and again in 1998, suggesting a degree of institutional momentum behind the designation. But when the evidence was examined more carefully, it was found to be insufficient to confirm that any genuine archaeological monument exists here. In other words, a quarry, a landscape feature common across rural Ireland and generally the result of extracting stone for local building or road repair, was at some point considered potentially significant enough to log, and then, upon review, quietly downgraded to a question mark.