The one at Ballyhennessy in north County Kerry does things differently. It sits in low-lying, waterlogged land, yet despite that apparently contrary choice of location, the view it commands is excellent in all directions, a quiet paradox that has survived the considerable battering this earthwork has taken over the centuries.

A rath, to use the Irish term, is a roughly circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, most commonly associated with early medieval settlement and farming. This example is bivallate, meaning it was originally defined by two concentric banks rather than one, which would have placed it a step above the most basic form of enclosure in terms of effort and, presumably, status. The internal space measures roughly 25.6 metres north to south and 28.6 metres east to west, making it a substantial enclosure. Today, the site is much reduced. The central raised area survives to only around 0.3 metres in height, and to the south and south-east it has been levelled entirely. A slight trace of an enclosing bank remains visible to the north, and the enclosing fosse, the ditch that once ran between the two banks, is approximately one metre wide. The outer earthen bank, four metres wide and just 0.2 metres high, clings on at the margins. One of the stranger details is that the interior now appears to sit slightly lower than the surrounding land, a reversal of what was originally intended, likely the result of gradual silting, waterlogging, and agricultural pressure over a long period. The site was documented by C. Toal in the North Kerry Archaeological Survey, published in 1995.