First spotted by Jean-Charles Caillère and documented by Caimin O’Brien in April 2020, the cropmarks visible on Apple Maps tell the story of a fortified settlement that would have been home to an Anglo-Norman or wealthy Irish family during the medieval period.

These moated sites were a common feature of the Irish landscape between the 13th and 14th centuries, serving as both status symbols and practical defensive structures. The enclosure at Ballyphilip would have contained a timber or stone hall, along with various outbuildings for storage, livestock, and daily activities. The surrounding moat, typically about three metres deep and up to ten metres wide, provided security whilst also draining the land and supplying fish for the table.

Today, whilst the physical structures have long since vanished, the site remains readable from above thanks to differential crop growth; plants grow differently over the filled-in ditches compared to the surrounding soil, creating distinctive patterns that aerial photography captures brilliantly. This phenomenon allows archaeologists and history enthusiasts to identify hundreds of similar sites across Ireland, each one a window into the medieval settlement patterns that shaped the modern Irish landscape.