Aerial photographs have captured the ghostly outline of a large rectangular enclosure, its boundaries marked by cropmarks that trace the remnants of a substantial earthen bank and an outer defensive ditch, or fosse. These features are characteristic of a moated site, a type of medieval settlement that once dotted the Irish countryside.

Moated sites like this one typically date from the 13th to 14th centuries, when Anglo-Norman settlers established fortified farmsteads across Ireland. The broad bank would have been topped with a wooden palisade or hedge, whilst the water-filled fosse served as both a defensive barrier and a status symbol. Inside the enclosure, there would have been a timber hall or stone building, along with various outbuildings for livestock, storage, and daily agricultural activities.

Today, nothing visible remains on the ground at Kellistown East; centuries of ploughing have levelled the earthworks completely. Yet when conditions are just right, usually during dry spells when crops grow differently over buried features, the ancient boundaries emerge in aerial photographs as darker or lighter patches in the fields. These cropmarks serve as a reminder that beneath Ireland’s pastoral landscape lies a complex medieval past, preserved not in stone ruins but in the very soil itself.