This phenomenon, known as a cropmark, occurs when buried ditches or pits retain more moisture than the compacted earth nearby, causing the vegetation above them to grow taller or greener. It is one of archaeology's more quietly remarkable tools, allowing features that have been invisible at ground level for centuries to briefly announce themselves from the air.

The photograph, catalogued as CUCAP BDI031 and taken on 14 July 1970, shows the ring-ditch at its clearest. Ring-ditches are generally understood to be the surviving traces of prehistoric burial monuments, most likely the encircling ditches that once surrounded low earthen mounds or barrows. The mounds themselves have long since been ploughed flat, leaving only the ditch as a faint signature in the subsoil. What makes the Foulksrath site particularly interesting is that it does not stand alone. Approximately 120 metres to the north-east, a second ring-ditch of similar dimensions has also been identified, suggesting that this corner of Kilkenny may once have held a small cluster of burial monuments, perhaps marking the landscape in a way that carried significance for the communities who created them.