The site caught the attention of Ordnance Survey cartographers in the 19th century, who marked it as a rectangular enclosure on their first edition six-inch map published in 1838. By the time the second edition was produced in 1888, however, the feature had vanished from the landscape and the maps alike.

This disappearance tells a familiar story of Ireland’s changing countryside during the Victorian era. Between 1838 and 1888, the site was completely levelled, leaving no surface evidence behind. Whether this was due to agricultural improvements, land reclamation, or simply the passage of time remains unclear. The fact that it’s unlikely to have been an antiquity suggests it may have been a relatively recent medieval or post-medieval structure; perhaps a fortified farmstead or minor manor house surrounded by a water-filled moat for defence.

Today, the location serves as a reminder of how much of Ireland’s historical landscape has been lost or transformed over the centuries. Without the meticulous work of those early Ordnance Survey mapmakers, we might never have known this moated site existed at all. The information we have comes from archaeological records compiled by Caimin O’Brien and uploaded to historical databases in December 2007, preserving at least the memory of what once stood in this quiet corner of Laois.