The one at Ballymackea Beg, sitting on the north bank of a small stream in County Clare, is a more elaborate proposition. It is trivallate, meaning it carries three concentric rings of banks and ditches rather than one, a configuration found at only a small proportion of surviving ringforts and generally associated with higher-status or more carefully defended settlements.

The geometry here is still legible on the ground. At the centre is a grass-covered circular area with an internal diameter of around 27 metres, enclosed by an earthen bank that stands up to 1.5 metres on the interior at its south-western side. That bank is separated from a second, central bank by a fosse, or ditch, and a further fosse divides the central bank from an outermost ring. A causeway, four metres wide and still standing roughly 0.6 metres above the level of the outer fosse, provided the original approach across the outermost ditch. The entrance through the central bank, positioned to the south-east, has been blocked at some point, leaving a gap of two metres now closed off rather than open. The whole structure sits low in the landscape, close to the stream, which would have supplied water to those living within and perhaps contributed to the defensive logic of placing so many earthen barriers between the interior and the surrounding land.