But that is precisely what you find at this small ringfort in Deegerty, County Limerick, where the earthwork has been so thoroughly absorbed into the working landscape that it takes a moment to read it correctly.

A rath, as this type of monument is known, is a roughly circular or oval enclosure defined by an earthen bank and, often, an external ditch, typically dating from the early medieval period in Ireland, between roughly the fifth and twelfth centuries. They served as enclosed farmsteads, protecting people, livestock, and stores. The Deegerty example is oval in plan, measuring 22.3 metres north to south and 19 metres east to west, and is enclosed by a combined earth-and-stone bank. Recorded by Denis Power, the site sits atop a low rise amid scrub vegetation. The bank survives to an internal height of around 0.45 metres and an external height of 0.95 metres, and is best preserved along its south-south-east to south-west arc. Elsewhere, particularly from the east around to the south-south-east, the bank has been incorporated directly into the local field boundary system, with a dry-stone wall built along its top, which is how the two features came to read as one.

The interior is level and covered by elder trees, which can make the enclosure's shape harder to appreciate from within. Approaching from outside, ideally from the southern side where the bank survives most clearly, gives a better sense of the original form. The surrounding area is described as covered in scrub, so the going may be rough underfoot depending on the season; late autumn or winter, when vegetation dies back, would make the earthwork easier to trace. The dry-stone wall running along the eastern portion of the bank is worth pausing over as a small piece of evidence for how earlier features were quietly repurposed as farming practices evolved across the same ground over many centuries.