When someone actually walked out to look at it, the mystery dissolved into something considerably more mundane, and rather more entertaining: a rectangular shooting hide, roughly two and a half metres by two metres internally, with walls nearly a metre thick, built to keep a gamekeeper comfortable and concealed while waiting for grouse.

The structure dates from the late nineteenth century and was put up for the Glengall Estate, a significant landholding in Tipperary. The Glengall family were prominent figures in the county, and the maintenance of game covers and shooting infrastructure was a routine part of managing such an estate in that period. Dry-stone walling, which uses carefully stacked stones without mortar, was a practical and locally available building method, and the compact, sturdy proportions of this hide would have made it a serviceable windbreak for a man with a gun and a dog waiting out a cold morning on the hill. That it read from the air as something potentially ancient is a reminder of how ambiguous small stone structures can be when stripped of their context, and how much difference a visit to a place can make.