Located in improved wet pasture about 45 metres east of a watercourse, this historical feature measures approximately 46 metres from north-northwest to south-southeast and 45 metres from east-northeast to west-southwest. Though it doesn’t appear on any of the Ordnance Survey Ireland’s historic maps, the site has revealed itself through modern technology; first spotted as a cropmark during the Bruff aerial photographic survey in 1986, then confirmed through Digital Globe orthophotos taken between 2011 and 2013, and Google Earth imagery from 2018.

The moated site sits 75 metres east of another enclosure in the area, suggesting this landscape was once home to multiple defensive or agricultural structures. Moated sites like this one were typically constructed during the Anglo-Norman period in Ireland, roughly from the 12th to 14th centuries, and served as fortified farmsteads for wealthy landowners. The moat, which would have been filled with water, provided both defence and drainage in these often marshy Irish landscapes.

What makes this particular site intriguing is how it has managed to leave its mark on the landscape centuries after abandonment. The rectangular earthwork remains visible from above, its outline traced by subtle variations in vegetation growth and soil composition. These differences create the cropmarks that aerial archaeology depends upon, revealing Ireland’s hidden medieval landscape to researchers like Alison McQueen and Vera Rahilly, who compiled the data for this site in September.