The collision of modern agriculture and early medieval archaeology is unremarkable in the Irish countryside, yet it makes the survival of what remains here all the more striking.

The site at Cluain Tí Cairtigh is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the type of enclosed farmstead that was built and occupied across Ireland roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Thousands were constructed, and thousands have since been levelled, leaving this one as a reasonably intact example. The enclosure is nearly circular, measuring approximately 32.5 metres north to south and 31.5 metres east to west. Along the western and eastern sides it is defined by an earthen bank, modest in height on the interior at around 0.4 metres but rising to 0.9 metres on the outer face. Elsewhere around the circuit, where a bank would have been impractical on the steeper ground, the boundary takes the form of a scarp, a cut or drop in the slope, reaching 1.7 metres in height. The interior itself has been raised slightly on its southern side, a deliberate earthmoving effort to level the floor against the natural fall of the hillside. A hedge now runs from the eastern side into the interior, following a line that may or may not echo something older. To the south-east, the scarp has been cut back where the concrete yard of a nearby farmhouse has been extended northward, removing a portion of the original perimeter.