It only reveals itself from the air, through what is known as a cropmark, where the buried outline of an ancient fosse, or encircling ditch, causes the grass or grain above it to grow at a slightly different rate, betraying the shape beneath. This is not unusual in itself; cropmark archaeology is a well-established phenomenon across Ireland and Britain. What makes this particular site quietly interesting is that it does not stand alone.

The ring-ditch at Ardoyne is one of three such features arranged on a rough north-to-south line within a relatively short distance of one another. A second lies approximately six metres to the north, and a third sits about 44 metres further south. Ring-ditches of this kind are generally understood to be the remains of prehistoric funerary or ceremonial monuments, the encircling ditches that once surrounded burial mounds, round barrows, or similar earthworks, the above-ground elements of which have long since been ploughed or eroded away. Their clustering in alignments like this is not uncommon and may reflect the deliberate grouping of burials within a shared ritual landscape, though what ceremony or belief system once animated this particular corner of Wicklow is entirely beyond recovery.