That is itself a kind of fact worth noting. Ireland has somewhere in the region of 45,000 surviving ringforts, the circular earthwork enclosures built predominantly during the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries, and used as farmsteads and status markers by farming families across the island. They are among the most common archaeological monuments in the country. And yet even common things can slip through the cracks of the documentary record.

A rath, as this type of monument is also known, typically consists of a raised circular area enclosed by one or more earthen banks and ditches. The interior would once have contained timber or wattle buildings, animal pens, and the everyday apparatus of rural life. The word "inchbeg" derives from the Irish "inis beag", meaning small island or water meadow, suggesting low-lying or seasonally wet ground in the vicinity, the kind of landscape where such enclosures are often found positioned on slightly elevated ground for drainage and visibility. Beyond its classification and its location in Clare, the specifics of this particular site remain, for now, out of public reach.