A satellite image taken in July 2013 showed crop marks, the subtle shadows left in growing vegetation by buried ditches and pits, revealing a large plectrum-shaped enclosure and, inside it, two circular ditches sitting close together in a field that had, to all appearances, been ordinary agricultural land for centuries. It was only when a residential development brought excavators to the site in 2020 that the full picture emerged.

The sequence of discovery followed a now-familiar pattern in Irish development-led archaeology. A geophysical survey carried out by Joanna Leigh in 2015 picked up two clear circular ditch responses, measuring roughly 11.25 metres and 12.25 metres in diameter, consistent with the crop mark evidence. Testing in 2017, conducted by Rob Lynch and Enda Lydon of IAC Archaeology, confirmed the presence of several distinct archaeological areas. When Muireann Ní Cheallacháin led the full excavation in 2020, the site proved to contain not just the two ring-ditches, which are circular earthwork monuments typically associated with Bronze Age funerary or ritual activity, but also a flat cemetery, multiple token cremation burial pits, a large stone-lined kiln, and the ploughed-out remains of a burnt spread. One of the ring-ditches, approximately ten metres in diameter, had been cut through at its western side by the outer enclosure ditch, indicating it was the earlier feature. Its three silty fills showed signs of deliberate backfilling, and within an upper layer of stone, excavators found a large quantity of prehistoric pottery sherds. The concentration was significant enough to suggest that a complete pot had been intentionally placed there, a gesture that sits somewhere between deposition and ritual. A small amount of burnt bone was recovered from the same layer, though internal features were otherwise absent.