Beneath the surface, however, and visible only under the right conditions from the air, lies evidence of a prehistoric landscape that has been quietly present all along. Cropmarks, the differential growth patterns in grass or grain caused by buried ditches and features affecting soil moisture, can reveal outlines that are otherwise completely invisible at ground level. In dry summers, the grass or crop above a buried ditch tends to grow taller and greener, tracing the original cut as if the ground itself is remembering it.

An aerial photograph taken in July 1989 captured exactly this kind of disclosure at Connahy. Three small ring-ditches appeared as cropmarks in the same frame, and what made the image particularly striking was their apparent position within two parallel fosses, that is, linear ditches or trenches, running on a north-west to south-east axis. Ring-ditches of this kind are typically the ploughed-down or eroded remains of Bronze Age burial mounds, where the circular ditch that once surrounded a central mound is all that survives after millennia of cultivation. The parallel fosses add a further layer of complexity, suggesting a broader pattern of activity or enclosure in the area. The cluster at Connahy is not isolated either; a number of additional ring-ditches have been identified as cropmarks in the surrounding area to the north-east, south, and south-west, collectively suggesting that this part of Kilkenny was a focus of funerary or ceremonial activity during prehistory.