But the enclosure at Bawnmore is one of thousands of ringforts scattered across Ireland, each one the remains of a farmstead typically dating from the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. A ringfort, or rath, was essentially a defended homestead: a circular or oval area enclosed by one or more earthen banks, sometimes reinforced with stone, within which a family would have lived, kept animals, and worked the land. The sheer number of surviving examples across the country speaks to how thoroughly this form of settlement defined rural Irish life for centuries.

The Bawnmore example sits on a south-east-facing slope, its oval interior measuring roughly 44.8 metres east to west and 35.7 metres north to south. The enclosure is defined in two distinct ways depending on where you are standing. Along the south-south-west to east-north-east arc, the boundary takes the form of an earthen bank standing about 0.8 metres high. On the remaining sections, the natural slope of the ground has been cut to create a scarp, a near-vertical face, rising to around 1.4 metres. Both the bank and the scarp are stone-faced in places, with large stones and boulders incorporated into the structure. The interior itself slopes gently down towards the south-east, and in the northern half, rock outcrops break through the surface. The combination of built bank and cut scarp suggests the builders were working with the terrain as much as against it, using the hillside itself as part of the enclosure's defensive logic.