On a steep east-facing slope of upland grassland in County Kilkenny, a ringfort, one of the thousands of roughly circular enclosed settlements built across Ireland during the early medieval period, has been levelled so thoroughly that only the ground itself gives it away. In certain light and certain seasons, a faint difference in the colour and texture of the grass traces the line of the fosse, the outer ditch that once defined the enclosure. That ghostly ring in the turf is all that remains of what was once a farmstead, possibly inhabited over a thousand years ago.

The site was substantial enough in its day. The first edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch sheet, produced in 1839, recorded a slightly oval enclosure measuring roughly 33 metres north to south and 36 metres east to west, and the shape was still legible enough to appear again in the 1900 revision of the same mapping. At some point between those early surveys and now, the earthworks were removed, most likely through agricultural improvement. The position chosen for the original settlement was a deliberate one. Sitting on a slope with long views to the east and south, whoever occupied this place would have had good sight lines across the surrounding landscape, even as the ground rises steeply behind them to the west and obscures the northern approaches.