It does not rise above the ground, it leaves no shadow, and there is no marker to suggest that anything of note occupies the space. The only record of its existence comes from a single aerial photograph taken in 1992, in which the outline of a circular ditch appears as a cropmark, the kind of ghostly trace that shows up when buried features affect how crops grow above them, producing subtle differences in colour and height that are invisible at ground level but legible from the air.

The photograph, taken as part of Ordnance Survey flight OS 8 (Flight 24, 526), captures what archaeologists classify as a ring-ditch, a roughly circular ditched enclosure that in Irish prehistory is most commonly associated with burial or ceremonial activity. Ring-ditches of this type are the ploughed-down remains of burial mounds, or occasionally freestanding circular enclosures, and they survive in the landscape largely because they were cut into the subsoil long ago. The Holybanks example, with its diameter of approximately fourteen metres and a noticeable gap on the north-western side, is consistent with that broader category, though the notes compiled by Geraldine Stout offer no further detail about date or original function. The gap in the north-west may represent an original entrance or simply a break in the ditch circuit, but without excavation it is impossible to say more.

The site sits in a field to the south of the Broadmeadow River, with the Applewood housing estate forming its western boundary. That proximity to suburban development makes its survival, even in this invisible form, quietly remarkable. There is nothing to see at ground level, and the field is private agricultural land, so a visit in the conventional sense is not really possible. The most accurate view of this feature remains the 1992 aerial photograph itself, which is held within the Ordnance Survey record. For anyone interested in how much of Ireland's archaeological landscape persists just beneath the surface, unseen and unannounced, the Holybanks ring-ditch is a useful reminder that absence of visible evidence is not evidence of absence.