This ancient enclosure forms an almost rectangular shape, measuring about 32 metres from northeast to southwest and 35 metres from northwest to southeast. Three sides of the site are defined by an earthen bank that rises just 15 centimetres on the inside but reaches 1.1 metres in height when viewed from outside; a clever bit of defensive architecture that would have made the enclosure appear more imposing to anyone approaching. The eastern side lacks a bank entirely, instead featuring a scarped edge about 40 centimetres high where the ground has been deliberately cut away.

The northern bank has an interesting later modification, having been built up to 1.35 metres high to serve as a field boundary, showing how these ancient sites often got repurposed by farming communities over the centuries. The interior, now used as pasture land, slopes gently towards the southwest, following the natural contours of the hillside. While there’s a slight depression in the bank at the southeastern corner, archaeologists haven’t identified any obvious entrance feature, leaving questions about how people originally accessed the enclosure.

Sites like this one, documented by Denis Power in 2011, are scattered throughout the Irish countryside, often hiding in plain sight amongst working farmland. Without excavation, it’s difficult to determine the exact age or purpose of this enclosure; it could have been anything from an early medieval farmstead to a prehistoric ceremonial site. What’s certain is that someone, at some point in the distant past, invested considerable effort in reshaping this hillside, creating a defined space that has endured for centuries in the Limerick landscape.