South of an old church and graveyard at Ballintemple, a low rise of earth traces the ghost of a circular enclosure roughly 38 metres across, its earthen bank worn down to somewhere between half a metre and just under a metre and a half in height. No entrance survives, no external fosse (the ditch that would typically ring such a monument on the outside), and no internal features have been identified. It is the kind of place that rewards patience and a low-angled light rather than a casual glance.

Ringforts are among the most common archaeological monument types in Ireland, built and occupied largely during the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries, as enclosed farmsteads for a single family or small community. This one at Ballintemple was already in poor condition when it caught the attention of Ordnance Survey fieldworkers in 1839, who noted in their letters that there appeared to be vestiges of a fort to the south-west of the old church, along with an old hut a short distance from it. That account, recorded by O'Flanagan and published in 1928, represents the earliest known description of the site. By 2011, an aerial photograph showed only the outline of a levelled enclosure, confirming that whatever earthworks once defined the place had been substantially reduced, most likely through centuries of agricultural activity.

The proximity of the ringfort to the church and graveyard is worth pausing over. Across Ireland, early ecclesiastical sites and secular enclosures often developed in close relationship with one another, and their physical nearness here may reflect a pattern of overlapping settlement rather than coincidence. The church and graveyard at Ballintemple survive as separate recorded monuments immediately to the north, giving this quiet corner of County Wicklow a layered presence that its unassuming landscape does little to advertise.