First spotted by Jean-Charles Caillere on GeoHive Aerial Premium imagery from 2013 to 2018, the site appears as a perfect square cropmark, measuring approximately 36 metres on each side. The darker lines in the crops trace out what was once a substantial defensive fosse, averaging about 5 metres in width, which would have been filled with water during the site’s active period.

These moated sites were a common feature of the Anglo-Norman landscape in medieval Ireland, typically dating from the 13th to 14th centuries. The square enclosure would have contained a timber hall or stone building, serving as a defended farmstead for a prosperous farming family or minor lord. The broad water-filled ditch served multiple purposes: defence against cattle raiders and wolves, drainage for the central platform, and a ready source of water for domestic use. The site’s position on south-facing agricultural land, roughly 300 metres north of the Three Mile Water river, would have provided both fertile soil and a reliable water source to maintain the moat.

Today, centuries of ploughing have levelled the earthworks, leaving only subtle differences in soil moisture and crop growth to mark where the moat once stood. These variations become visible from above during particularly dry summers, when crops growing over the filled-in ditch stay greener longer than those in the surrounding field, creating the distinctive square pattern captured in the aerial photographs. Compiled by Gearóid Conroy and uploaded to archaeological records in July 2023, this site joins hundreds of similar discoveries across Ireland, each one a reminder of the medieval families who once farmed these lands.