That bank is still there, sitting quietly in pasture on a south-east-facing slope, largely unchanged and largely unvisited. This is a rath, the most common type of ringfort found across Ireland, a form of enclosed farmstead that was built and occupied roughly between the early medieval period and the twelfth century. Thousands were constructed across the island, yet each one carries the same quietly arresting quality: a deliberate human shape pressed into the land and left there.

The Carhoo example is a solid specimen. The circular enclosure measures 37 metres north to south and 36 metres east to west, making it close to perfectly round. Its earthen bank still stands to a height of 1.4 metres, which is a reasonable survival for a structure of this age and material. Running around the outside from the north-east to the east-south-east is an external fosse, a defensive ditch, surviving to a depth of 0.8 metres. The fosse would originally have complemented the bank, the spoil dug from the ditch thrown inward to build up the enclosure wall. Together they created both a physical barrier and a statement of demarcation, separating the domestic interior from the wider landscape. Who lived here, what they farmed, and when exactly the site was abandoned are questions the ground has not yet answered.