Today, however, there’s little visible trace of this impressive fortification; the entire monument has been quarried away to match the level of the gently rolling pasture that stretches to the east and southeast. Where the northwestern edge of the earthwork once stood, a sheer quarry face now marks the extent of the industrial extraction that consumed this piece of history. The site, wedged between a factory and modern housing developments along the Tipperary to Thurles road, appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1840-41 simply as ‘Moat’, whilst the current maps note only the ‘gravel pits’ to the southwest.

When surveyors visited in the 1840s, they found a remarkable structure still intact: a circular motte some 12.4 metres in diameter at its summit and rising nearly 18 metres high, with an unusual quadrangular mound attached to its southwestern side. The bailey, measuring about 25.9 metres across where undamaged, stood approximately 7.7 metres high and was connected to the motte by a dipping ridge. Surrounding the entire earthwork was a substantial defensive ditch, or fosse, varying from 6 to 20 feet wide depending on the terrain, with a counterscarp that rose as much as 4.5 metres where the fosse had been cut through the hill’s crest. The defensive capabilities were clearly well thought out; where the natural hillside fell away and the fosse became shallower, the builders compensated by forming a steep outer rampart from the excavated clay.

By the early 20th century, Flynn’s 1913 survey found the structure “fairly preserved” despite gravel extraction having already destroyed the fosse and part of the bailey on the southwestern side. Intriguingly, he also noted reports of human bones discovered in quantities some 90 to 140 metres northeast of the motte, including a skeleton unearthed around the turn of the century. Though aerial photography from 1966 still showed the upstanding motte, subsequent quarrying has since obliterated what remained of this once formidable medieval fortification, leaving only historical records and memories of its commanding presence over the Tipperary landscape.