And yet that shallow depression is the last trace of a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber used in early medieval Ireland typically for storage or refuge, built inside a ringfort whose earthen enclosure still stands nearby.

The ringfort itself is the older frame for this story, but the souterrain is its more intriguing detail. Writing in 1914, a researcher named Neary noted that the garth, meaning the enclosed yard or interior, of this ringfort contained a souterrain. By the time the archaeological inventory for North Galway was compiled in the late twentieth century, the underground structure had long since collapsed, leaving only the sunken outline visible on the surface, oriented along a north to south axis and sitting in the southern half of the fort's interior. The two flanking stone heaps are presumably the tumbled remnants of the original lining or roofing material.

It is a site that rewards a certain kind of patience, one better suited to those already curious about early medieval settlement patterns in the west of Ireland than to anyone expecting a dramatic monument. The hollow is subtle enough to be overlooked entirely without prior knowledge of what it represents.