A rath, sometimes called a ringfort, is one of the most common monument types in Ireland, typically a circular area enclosed by one or more earthen banks and ditches, used as a farmstead during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. There are estimated to be around 45,000 of them across the island, yet each one represents a particular family, a particular patch of ground, a particular moment in the long agricultural history of the country. The one at Bellia is among those that have yet to receive much in the way of formal published attention.