Somewhere on a south-facing slope in Glennaphuca, County Waterford, there is a ringfort that has effectively vanished. Not demolished, not built over, simply gone from view, its circular outline no longer readable at ground level even though the ground itself still holds the memory of it.

Ringforts are among the most common archaeological features in the Irish landscape, roughly circular enclosures defined by earthen banks and ditches that once enclosed farmsteads during the early medieval period, broadly from around the fifth to the twelfth century. This particular example was recorded as a circular enclosure with an external diameter of approximately forty metres, and it appears on the 1840 edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map, meaning that at the time of the first systematic mapping of Ireland it was at least legible enough to be noted. Since then, centuries of agricultural use have smoothed it away. It sits in pasture near the top of the slope, and a second possible ringfort site lies roughly fifty metres to the south-west, raising the intriguing possibility that two such enclosures once occupied the same hillside in close proximity.