Spotted on Google Earth photographs from June 2018, the cropmarks trace out a substantial rectangular enclosure measuring approximately 77 metres from north to south. These faint impressions in the landscape, visible only from above under the right conditions, hint at a once significant fortified homestead that would have dominated this part of the Kildare countryside centuries ago.

Moated sites like this one were particularly popular in medieval Ireland between the 13th and 14th centuries, serving as defended farmsteads for Anglo-Norman settlers and prosperous Irish families. The moat itself, typically a water-filled ditch surrounding a raised platform, provided both practical defence and a statement of status. While the physical structures have long since vanished, the earth retains the memory of these ancient boundaries; differences in soil moisture and composition affect crop growth, creating the telltale patterns that modern aerial photography can detect.

The discovery, documented by Caimin O’Brien with information from Matthew Mullen Reynolds, adds another piece to the puzzle of medieval settlement patterns in County Kildare. This region, with its fertile plains and strategic position near the Pale, was densely populated with such fortified homesteads during the Middle Ages. Though the site at Ballysax Great may appear as nothing more than subtle variations in vegetation from ground level, from the air it reveals itself as a window into Ireland’s complex medieval past, when moated manor houses dotted the landscape and local lords controlled their territories from behind water-filled defences.