This moated site, measuring 23 metres northwest to southeast and 18 metres northeast to southwest, was first spotted from above during the Bruff aerial photographic survey in 1986. Despite its substantial size and clear defensive features, the site somehow escaped the attention of Ordnance Survey Ireland’s historic mapmakers, remaining unmarked on their detailed 19th and early 20th century charts.

The enclosure’s design follows a pattern familiar to medieval Ireland; a raised platform surrounded by protective earthworks that once served as both defence and status symbol. Three sides of the rectangle are defined by an earthen bank with an external fosse, essentially a dry moat, running along the southwest, northwest and northeast boundaries. The fourth side cleverly incorporates the existing townland boundary to the southeast, suggesting the builders made practical use of pre-existing landscape divisions when constructing their fortification.

Modern aerial photography has brought this forgotten monument into sharp focus, with orthoimages from various sources between 2005 and 2020 clearly showing the earthwork’s distinctive rectangular footprint pressed into the Limerick countryside. These moated sites, typically dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, were often home to Anglo-Norman settlers or prosperous Irish families who adopted this particular style of defended homestead. Today, what remains is a subtle but unmistakable mark on the land; a geometric shadow in the pasture that speaks to centuries of habitation, abandonment, and the slow reclamation of history by grass and time.