This one, in Ballyreehan in north Kerry, does the opposite. It occupies low-lying pastureland, and yet despite the flatness of the terrain, clear views open out in every direction from inside it, which lends the enclosure a curiously exposed quality, as though it were designed to be watched from as much as to watch over.

A rath, to use the Irish term, is an early medieval farmstead enclosed by one or more earthen banks, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth century. This example is univallate, meaning it has a single enclosing bank rather than two or three concentric rings. That bank survives in reasonable condition: roughly five metres wide at the base, rising nearly two metres on its outer face. A fosse, the shallow defensive ditch that typically runs around the outside of such an enclosure, can still be traced on the north-western to south-western arc, where it measures about 1.6 metres wide and 0.8 metres deep. Two original entrances pierce the southern side, one noticeably wider than the other at five metres across, suggesting a main approach and a secondary access. What makes the interior particularly interesting is a mound in the northern sector, roughly four metres by six, which curves inward against the bank. Features like this within raths are not always easy to interpret; they may represent the remains of a structure, a later addition, or something older absorbed into the enclosure when it was built. The interior itself sits at a slightly higher level than the surrounding fields, a common characteristic of long-occupied enclosures where accumulated occupation material has gradually raised the ground surface over centuries.