What they would be crossing is the ghost of an early medieval farmstead, a rath or ringfort, the kind of enclosed homestead that once numbered in the tens of thousands across Ireland and formed the basic unit of rural life for centuries.

The enclosure is oval in plan, roughly 34 metres north to south and 39 metres east to west, defined by an earthen inner bank, a steep flat-bottomed fosse (a defensive ditch, dug wide rather than deep), and a second outer bank beyond it. The double-bank arrangement suggests this was a more substantial enclosure than the simplest single-banked examples, though time and agriculture have worn it down considerably. A modern field fence cuts across the northern arc, and gaps have opened in both banks at various points. The entrance survives most clearly at the south, where a narrow gap in the inner bank, just over two metres wide, aligns with a low causeway crossing the fosse and a corresponding gap in the outer bank. Inside, faint cultivation ridges run north to south, traces of tillage that may post-date the ringfort's active use or may reflect activity during its occupation. A second ringfort sits approximately 215 metres to the north-north-east, a reminder that these monuments rarely stand entirely alone; the early medieval landscape of this part of Westmeath was evidently well settled. The site occupies good elevated ground with open views of the surrounding hills, the kind of position that would have suited a farming family wanting both visibility and a degree of natural advantage.