The rath at Fairhill in County Galway is a different matter. Sitting in level grassland, it retains two concentric banks with an intervening fosse, the ditch between them that would have added both drainage and defensive depth to the enclosure. The outer bank remains visible at the south-east and south-west, and the overall form is subcircular, measuring roughly 41 metres east to west and 37.5 metres north to south. Only a gap on the western side breaks the circuit, and that opening looks to be a modern intrusion rather than an original entrance.

Raths were enclosed farmsteads, typically of early medieval date, in which a family of some local standing would have kept their household, livestock, and stores within a raised earthen ring. The double-banked variety, sometimes called a bivallate rath, generally indicates either greater wealth or a heightened concern for security, since the labour involved in throwing up two banks and digging a fosse between them was considerably more than a single enclosure required. The Fairhill example fits that pattern: its two-bank arrangement and well-preserved condition together suggest it was once a site of some consequence in the local landscape, even if the particular family or period it belonged to is now beyond recovery.