That a structure like this has survived at all, in farmland that has clearly continued to be worked, says something about how stubbornly these features hold their shape in the Irish landscape.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when formed from earth rather than stone, are among the most common archaeological monuments in Ireland, with an estimated forty to fifty thousand having existed across the country. Most date to the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries, and functioned as enclosed farmsteads, the bank and fosse offering a degree of protection for a family and their livestock. The example at Ardura More is roughly circular, measuring twenty-six metres on its north-south axis and twenty-four metres east to west, and sits on an east-facing slope. What makes it slightly more interesting than a simple enclosure is the evidence of cultivation ridges crossing the interior on an east-west axis. These ridges, formed by repeated spade or plough tillage, suggest the interior was at some point given over to crop growing rather than, or perhaps alongside, its use as a habitation or pastoral enclosure. Whether this happened during the fort's original period of use or much later, when the bank had perhaps lost its association with earlier occupation, is not clear from what survives at ground level.