Ringforts, known in Irish as raths or liosanna, were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically consisting of a raised circular area enclosed by one or more earthen banks and ditches. They were not military fortifications in any serious sense but farmsteads, the homes of farming families and minor lords who lived within them roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Ireland retains tens of thousands of them, scattered across almost every county, and yet each one represents a specific family, a specific patch of ground, a specific moment of decision about where to build a life.