Not a prehistoric ceramic vessel, not a carefully fashioned cinerary urn, but the kind of terracotta pot that might once have held a houseplant. It is an oddly mundane footnote to a burial site of considerable antiquity, and it came about through a particular combination of early twentieth-century excavation, well-meaning improvisation, and the archaeological conventions of the day.

The site at Cush sits within a wider archaeological complex identified by the antiquary Thomas Johnson Westropp in the early 1900s as the supposed location of Temaír Erann, the ancient cemetery of the Ernai tribe on Slievereagh, the Irish name of which, Sliabh Riabhach, translates roughly as the brindled or grey-streaked mountain. A ringfort lies some 27 metres to the north-east, and two burial mounds sit immediately to the south. It was one of these mounds, designated Tumulus I by the archaeologist Seán P. Ó Ríordáin, that produced the curious sequence of events described in his published account. When the mound was first opened in 1924, an urn burial was uncovered. An urn burial typically means cremated remains placed inside a ceramic vessel, often dating to the Bronze Age. The original pot was apparently damaged or lost during that earlier dig, and the cremated remains were gathered up and reburied at the same spot, this time inside a geranium pot. When Ó Ríordáin returned to excavate Tumulus I between 1934 and 1935, his team found the re-interred remains near the centre of the mound, along with fragments of what appeared to be the original urn. The mound also yielded a cist, a small stone-lined burial box, which is a separate and older form of grave construction.

Cush is in reclaimed agricultural land, and the monument sits within a complex of features that repays careful attention to the surrounding landscape rather than to any single structure. The burial mounds and the nearby ringfort are the main visible elements. Visitors with an interest in the excavation plans drawn up by Ó Ríordáin can consult the National Monuments Service records, where those plans are held. Access is across farmland, so checking local conditions before visiting is advisable. The geranium pot itself is not on display anywhere, remaining where it was re-found, somewhere beneath the turf of Tumulus I.