Known in Irish as a rath, a ringfort is a roughly circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, built during the early medieval period, broadly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and used as a farmstead or defended homestead by a family of some local standing. Ireland contains tens of thousands of them, making the ringfort the most common field monument in the country, yet each one represents a particular household, a particular piece of ground, chosen and shaped by people whose names are long gone.