That possibility gives this well-preserved circular rath at Kilcarrooraun, in County Galway, an understated particularity.

A rath is a ringfort, the most common monument type in the Irish landscape, typically consisting of a raised earthen bank enclosing a circular area where an early medieval farming family would have kept their home and livestock. This example, sitting on a south-west-facing slope in open pastureland, measures roughly 27 metres in diameter and retains both its bank and its external fosse, the shallow ditch dug to provide the material for the bank and to reinforce the enclosure's boundary. What makes Kilcarrooraun worth pausing over is its condition. The bank and fosse survive with enough clarity to read the original form of the place, and that gap at the south-west, aligned towards the slope's natural approach, aligns with a pattern seen at other raths where entrances were placed to face the prevailing direction of movement or, in some interpretations, the morning light. Whether this particular break is original or a later intrusion cannot be confirmed from what survives, but the alignment invites the question.