This one, on a south-facing slope at Baile An Bhuaidh in County Cork, is a good example of how thoroughly the everyday can absorb the ancient. A low earthen bank, nowhere higher than 0.75 metres, traces a circle roughly 35.5 metres across, its rim now carrying a stone field boundary that was laid on top of it at some later, unrecorded point. The interior edges are heavily overgrown, and field clearance material, the stones and debris turned out of surrounding pasture over generations of farming, has been tipped against the outer face of the bank from the south around to the east-northeast.

A rath, as this type of earthwork is sometimes called, was the standard form of enclosed farmstead in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from somewhere between the sixth and twelfth centuries. The enclosing bank, often accompanied by a ditch on the outside, defined a domestic space rather than a military one; livestock, a house or two, and the working life of a family. At Baile An Bhuaidh, the bank has survived well enough in outline to make the circular plan legible, even if centuries of agricultural use have softened its profile and added layers of later activity on top of and around it. The stone boundary sitting on its crest is a reminder of how rarely these sites have been left entirely alone; farmers needed walls, and a ready-made earthen ridge was a convenient foundation for one.