No earthwork rises above the ground, no stones protrude, and there is nothing to catch the eye. The only way this feature has ever been seen is from above, and even then only under the right conditions: it shows up as a cropmark, the subtle discolouration that appears in growing crops when buried features affect how plants take up moisture and nutrients. What it reveals is a ring-ditch, a circular enclosure roughly six metres in diameter defined by a continuous fosse, or ditch, cut into the earth.

Ring-ditches of this kind are often the last trace of prehistoric funerary monuments, the buried remnants of a surrounding ditch that once defined a barrow or burial mound long since ploughed flat. This particular example sits on a slight rise on a gentle east-facing slope at Ballinastraw, a position that would have been typical of how such monuments were deliberately placed in the landscape. It was first reported by Simon Dowling, who spotted it on Google Earth imagery dated 14 July 2018, a reminder that aerial and satellite observation continues to add new sites to the archaeological record. The cropmark is only visible on that platform and would not be apparent on the ground itself.