The ringfort here has been levelled, its earthen bank long since flattened by centuries of agricultural use, yet the outline of its fosse, the encircling ditch that once defined the boundary of the enclosure, remains traceable on the ground for anyone who knows to look.

A rath, as this type of ringfort is sometimes called, was typically a farmstead of the early medieval period, enclosed by one or more earthen banks and ditches to protect livestock and mark territory rather than to serve any serious military purpose. The Skaghardgannon example was recorded as a hachured circular enclosure on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1842, with a diameter of around 25 metres. By the time later surveys were made, in 1906 and again in 1937, the depicted dimensions had shifted, recorded at roughly 30 metres and then 20 metres respectively, suggesting either ongoing disturbance or the ordinary imprecision of successive surveyors working with a feature already under pressure. What ground survey has since revealed is a fosse enclosing an area measuring approximately 41 metres east to west and 37.7 metres north to south, somewhat larger than any of the mapped figures, which hints at how much can remain once you look past the surface.