The one at Gowerhass, in County Clare, is a rath, the term used for a ringfort constructed from earthen banks rather than stone, and it sits quietly in a county already dense with prehistoric and early medieval remains.

Raths were typically built during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and served as enclosed farmsteads for individual families or small communities. The enclosing bank and ditch were less about military defence and more about defining a boundary, keeping livestock in and wolves out, and marking the social status of the household within. Clare, with its mix of limestone plain and drumlin country, contains a remarkable concentration of these sites, many of which survive as earthwork features still visible from the ground or from aerial survey. The placename Gowerhass itself is likely of Irish origin, as with most townland names in the west of Ireland, and the presence of a rath here suggests continuous agricultural use of this ground stretching back well over a thousand years.