It is a ring-ditch, a type of monument generally associated with prehistoric funerary or ritual activity, in which a circular trench was cut into the earth, sometimes surrounding a burial mound that has long since been ploughed flat. What remains is the ghost of that trench, its fill differing subtly from the surrounding soil in ways that only become apparent when crops grow unevenly above it, revealing the outline as a cropmark, a discolouration readable from altitude but otherwise leaving no trace on the landscape a walker would notice.

The feature was first identified on aerial photographs taken on 20 August 1991, and confirmed by a further photograph taken in August 1996. That same 1991 photography session revealed something more striking still: three additional ring-ditches in the immediate vicinity, positioned approximately 110 metres to the south-east, 70 metres to the east, and 140 metres to the north-west. The clustering of four such monuments within a relatively compact area suggests this corner of Kilkenny was once a place of some significance, a landscape marked out and returned to repeatedly, though the precise period and purpose remain unresolved. Since those photographs were taken, the R693 road has been constructed running north-west to south-east through the area, physically dividing the group, with two of the associated ring-ditches now lying to the east of the road and two to the west.