A rath, or ringfort, is the most common archaeological monument type in Ireland, a roughly circular enclosure defined by one or more banks and ditches, built during the early medieval period as a defended farmstead for a family of some local standing. That commonness is, in its own way, part of what makes each individual example worth pausing over. Ireland has an estimated 45,000 of them, yet the majority remain unexcavated, their interior secrets unread, their occupants anonymous.