Somewhere in the flat agricultural land of County Kildare, a roughly circular patch of ground about 41 metres across has quietly continued its working life while its origins have receded almost entirely from view. The site at Daars is a rath, one of the thousands of earthen ringforts built across Ireland during the early medieval period, typically between the fifth and twelfth centuries, as enclosed farmsteads for families of moderate status. Most retain at least some visible trace of their original form. This one has been gradually absorbed into the farm around it.

As recently as 1972, the rath still showed its essential structure: a low bank of earth and stone running in a rough circle, hedged along its top to enclose a paddocked interior, with an outer fosse, the shallow defensive ditch that typically ringed such enclosures, recut and pressed into service as a field drain. By the time the site was recorded in detail, that process of repurposing was already well advanced. Since then, the hedged bank has been levelled altogether, and the fosse, roughly three metres wide, now defines the perimeter of a haggard, the yard used for storing and stacking hay and grain. Modern entrances have been cut at the north-east and south. The geometry of the original enclosure survives, in other words, but only because it happened to be useful.