Get closer, though, and the nettles begin to make sense. They almost certainly mark the line of an infilled fosse, the defensive ditch that once ringed this early medieval enclosure, now buried under centuries of accumulated soil and pasture. The nettles thrive where moisture and disturbed ground persist, quietly outlining what the landscape has otherwise absorbed.

The site is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common monument type in the Irish countryside. These circular or oval enclosures were typically built during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and functioned as enclosed farmsteads for a single family or small community. A bank and ditch provided a degree of security for livestock and inhabitants alike. This particular example in Lissatotan, in the old barony of Shanid, takes an oval form measuring approximately 31 metres north to south and just under 27 metres east to west. The defining feature is a scarped edge, essentially an earthen bank cut or built to produce a sharp slope, which stands to around 0.85 metres in height and spreads to a width of roughly 5.7 metres at its best-preserved stretch, running from the east-southeast around to the southwest. Moving from the southwest toward the north, the scarp drops away and becomes difficult to trace at all. Cattle grazing on the southwestern arc have worn it down further still. The survey was compiled by Denis Power and uploaded in August 2011.

The site sits in pasture on a gentle southeast-facing slope, so underfoot conditions will vary with the season and recent weather. The interior of the enclosure dips softly toward the centre, a subtle topographical detail that is easier to feel underfoot than to see from outside. The preserved portion of the scarp, from the east-southeast around to the southwest, is the clearest place to read the original form of the monument, while the northern arc requires more imagination. The nettles at the base of the scarp are worth pausing over; in the absence of excavation, they remain the most telling clue to the vanished ditch beneath.