On a south-facing slope of upland ground at Drumbaun in County Tipperary, there was once a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, one of the circular earthen enclosures built throughout Ireland from roughly the early medieval period as farmsteads and high-status residences. Today there is nothing to see. The site is not visible at ground level, and no trace remains for a visitor to read in the landscape.

What makes this particular absence notable is that it is a recent and documented one. The ringfort at Drumbaun was destroyed in 1981, a date recorded by Stout in 1984. It did not gradually erode over centuries or succumb to the slow pressure of vegetation and weather. It was simply removed, within living memory, and is now gone. The site sat on rising ground in an upland area, and it was not alone; a second ringfort lies to the south, recorded separately and presumably still extant when the inventory of North Tipperary was compiled. That surviving neighbour makes the loss of this one feel more pointed. Ireland has thousands of ringforts, and a significant number have been lost to land clearance and agricultural improvement over the twentieth century, but each erasure removes a piece of the early medieval rural landscape that cannot be reconstructed from what remains.