The example at Garryduff in County Cork is a good illustration of how much can persist in a working landscape. It sits in level pasture, the ground lifting gently away to the north-west, and its circular enclosure measures roughly 38 metres north to south and 35 metres east to west, dimensions that place it comfortably within the typical range for a rath, the earthen variety of ringfort that served as a defended farmstead during the early medieval period, broadly from around 500 to 1000 AD.

The structure consists of an earthen bank, still standing about 1.2 metres high on its inner face and nearly 1.85 metres on the outer, with an external fosse, or ditch, that reaches a depth of 1.4 metres. A gap of 3 metres on the southern side marks the original entrance, which is the most common orientation for ringfort openings in Ireland, possibly for reasons of solar exposure or prevailing wind. The fosse itself becomes noticeably wider and shallower as it runs from south towards the north-east, where it has been encroached upon by a later earthen field boundary, a reminder that agricultural reuse of ancient features has been continuous and often gradual rather than dramatic.