The rath at Garryrickin, in County Kilkenny, is one such departure: its enclosed area is irregular and sub-square rather than round, an unusual geometry that sets it apart from the typical Early Medieval farmstead enclosure.

The site sits on mostly level pasture with a gentle slope towards the west, and a stream running along its south-western edge. A bank, four to five metres wide, survives along the arc from north-west to east, and traces of a shallow outer fosse, the defensive ditch that would once have reinforced the bank, remain on the northern and western sides. That fosse is now only around three metres wide and barely half a metre deep, much reduced from whatever it may once have been. The internal area measures approximately 48 metres in diameter, large enough to have enclosed a substantial settlement. Gaps in the bank at the north-west and north-east likely indicate original entrances, though centuries of use and weathering make it difficult to say with certainty. When the site was inspected, the interior was hummocky and thickly overgrown with briars and hawthorn, the kind of dense, undisturbed vegetation that often accumulates inside earthworks that have been left to their own devices for a long time.