The example at Killeen in County Clare is one of these, a rath, which is the Irish term for a roughly circular enclosure defined by an earthen bank and interior ditch, built and inhabited mostly during the early medieval period, broadly speaking the fifth to twelfth centuries. These were farmsteads rather than fortresses, the defended homes of farming families of middling social rank, and the landscape of Clare is littered with their remains, some reduced to faint cropmarks and others still carrying a presence you can feel from the road.

The Killeen rath sits within a county that was once the heartland of the Dál Cais, the dynasty that produced Brian Boru, and the density of early medieval settlement sites across Clare reflects centuries of sustained agricultural activity in the region. A rath typically consists of one or more concentric earthen banks, sometimes with an entrance causeway still legible on the ground, and the enclosed area would have contained timber or wattle structures for dwelling and storage. Many ringforts in Ireland were later associated with fairy lore, a cultural overlay that paradoxically helped preserve them, since farmers were reluctant to plough them out even when the land hunger was severe.