This one in Downs, County Westmeath, sits instead on the summit of a high ridge, raised above the surrounding undulating grassland with commanding views in every direction. That elevated position sets it apart, suggesting that whoever chose this spot was as concerned with surveillance and display as with everyday settlement.

The fort is a rath, the most common type of Irish ringfort, formed from earthen banks rather than stone, and this example is more elaborate than most. An oval enclosure measuring roughly 39 metres north to south and 34 metres east to west is defined by two earthen banks separated by a fosse, which is a defensive ditch, along with a further outer fosse beyond the second bank. Between the inner fosse and the outer bank there is a wide berm, a flat shelf of ground, approximately eight metres across. Entry was from the east, where a gap of around two and a half metres cuts through both the inner and outer banks, with a causeway laid across the ditches to allow passage. This kind of multivallate arrangement, with two banks and two ditches, generally indicates a site of some status; in early medieval Ireland, where ringforts housed farming families across a broad social range, the more elaborate the earthworks, the more significant the occupant was likely to be.

Inside the enclosure, the ground still holds the faint traces of habitation. Grass-covered wall footings of a rectangular house site are visible near the centre of the interior, and a second possible hut site can be made out along the inner face of the bank in the north-northeast quadrant. These are subtle features, low humps and lines in the turf rather than standing masonry, but they give the place a quiet legibility. The earthworks themselves remain well-defined, and the ridge-top position means the fort announces itself gradually as you approach, the banks rising against the sky before the full shape of the enclosure comes clear.