The cropmarks, captured in the CUCAP ASU 59-61 series, show a fosse or defensive ditch that forms a sub-rectangular boundary measuring roughly 80 metres from southwest to northeast and 50 metres from northwest to southeast. What makes this site particularly intriguing is the faint trace of what appears to be an attached field system at the northeastern corner, suggesting this wasn’t just a defensive structure but part of a working agricultural landscape.

The enclosure seems to overlay an even older ring-ditch complex, hinting at centuries of continuous occupation and reuse of this particular spot. Ring-ditches in Ireland often mark the locations of Bronze Age burial mounds or settlement sites, so this layering of archaeological features could represent different communities making their mark on the same patch of land across thousands of years. The moated site designation suggests medieval origins for the rectangular enclosure; these were typically built by Anglo-Norman settlers or Gaelicised families between the 12th and 14th centuries as fortified farmsteads.

Today, you’d walk right past this site without knowing it was there. The ditches have long since been filled in, the banks levelled by centuries of ploughing, and any above-ground structures have vanished entirely. It’s only through the magic of aerial photography that these ancient boundaries become visible again; differences in crop growth over buried features create patterns that can be seen from above but are imperceptible at ground level. This hidden monument, catalogued as KD038-024001 in the archaeological record, serves as a reminder that Ireland’s medieval and prehistoric landscapes often lie just beneath the surface of ordinary looking fields.