The one at Bigfurze in County Westmeath is a quieter proposition. It sits on a slight knoll amid low-lying pasture, its outline not quite circular but sub-rectangular, measuring roughly 21 metres north to south and 20 metres east to west. The enclosing bank of earth and stone has largely sunk into the ground over the centuries, surviving best along the southern and western sides, while a gap of around 2.7 metres in the western bank may once have served as an entrance.

Ringforts are the most common archaeological monument type in Ireland, with estimates running to around 45,000 across the island. Most were built during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and functioned as enclosed farmsteads, the bank and any accompanying ditch providing a degree of protection for a family and their livestock. What makes the Bigfurze example quietly interesting is what survives inside. The interior rises steadily from the perimeter toward the centre, and at that raised heart of the enclosure sit the remains of a rectangular house. This kind of internal structure is relatively rarely recorded in such legible form. A stream runs approximately 85 metres to the west, which would have made the site practical as well as defensible, and a forestry plantation now stands about 55 metres to the east, lending the surrounding landscape a somewhat altered character from what the original occupants would have known.