That detail, almost a footnote, says a great deal about how Ireland's ringforts have fared since the early medieval period when they were built as defended farmsteads for prosperous farming families. This one at Rearahinagh in West Cork survives in pasture on a south-south-west-facing slope, its oval outline measuring just under thirty metres across, and it retains enough of its original form to reward a careful look.

The enclosure is defined by an earthen bank standing about 1.3 metres high, stone-faced in sections, with a shallow external fosse, essentially a ditch dug to reinforce the barrier, running along the western side. A gap of roughly 2.5 metres in the north-east portion of the bank marks what was likely the original entrance. The interior has been deliberately raised on its southern side to level the ground against the natural fall of the hillslope, a small but telling piece of construction effort that suggests the site was once taken seriously as a place to live and work. There is also a possible souterrain associated with the fort; a souterrain is an underground stone-lined passage, typically used in the early medieval period for storage or as a place of refuge, and their presence within ringforts is relatively common across Munster. Whether this one has ever been properly investigated is not recorded.