Somewhere beneath the tilled soil of a south-west-facing slope in County Sligo, a ringfort has effectively ceased to exist at ground level, leaving only a cartographic ghost behind. A ringfort, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a roughly circular enclosed settlement, typically dating from the early medieval period, defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches. Thousands survive across Ireland in varying states of preservation. This one does not.

The evidence for what once stood here comes from the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1913, which records a roughly semi-circular hachured area measuring approximately 25 metres east-northeast to west-southwest and 15 metres north-northwest to south-southeast. The enclosure sat on the north-northwest side of a field boundary running in the same east-northeast to west-southwest orientation. By the time anyone thought to look more closely, the enclosure had been levelled entirely, with no remains visible at ground level. The 1913 map is consequently the primary record of its existence, a single printed sheet preserving the outline of something that the land itself no longer shows.