Thousands were built between roughly the fifth and twelfth centuries, and their circular earthworks have quietly shaped the Irish countryside ever since, sometimes persisting as field boundaries long after any memory of their original purpose has faded.

This particular example, known as a rath, a ringfort defined by earthen rather than stone construction, sits on top of a small hillock in open pasture. The enclosed area measures approximately 27 metres north to south, a modest but typical size for a single family farmstead. What makes the site quietly interesting is the condition of its enclosing bank: well preserved on the western to south-eastern arc, where it still stands around 1.6 metres high, but reduced almost to nothing on the south-eastern to western arc, where only about 0.2 metres of it remains above ground. On the western side, a shallow external fosse, a defensive ditch dug to reinforce the bank, survives to a depth of around 0.35 metres. The bank itself, or at least the better-preserved section of it, has been absorbed into the townland boundary system, which is a common fate for ringfort earthworks. Once the original settlement was abandoned, the ready-made earthen lines were simply repurposed to mark the edges of landholdings, preserving the archaeology almost by accident.