A hollow in a field, a drainage ditch, a modest earthwork, all can acquire an air of antiquity simply by being rendered in nineteenth or early twentieth century cartographic shorthand. In Reaghan, County Galway, one such feature on the 1920 edition of the OS six-inch map caught enough attention to merit a field visit, only to reveal itself as a sand pit, almost certainly dug to supply local agricultural or construction needs sometime after 1700.