The stone wall that traces its perimeter, standing about 1.2 metres high, is built in much the same style as the field fences around it, which means the untrained eye might walk past without registering anything out of the ordinary. What gives it away, if anything does, is its shape: a near-perfect circle, 26 metres across.

This is a rath, or ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead typically dating from the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries, when they were the standard form of rural settlement across Ireland. Thousands survive in various states across the country, though many have been levelled by centuries of agriculture. The Lackabane example is defined by its stone wall rather than the earthen bank and ditch more commonly associated with the form, which suggests local building materials and traditions shaped its construction. What makes this particular site quietly unusual is what has taken root inside it. The interior has been planted with coniferous trees, a relatively modern intervention that turns the ancient enclosure into an accidental woodland, visible from some distance in an otherwise open pastoral landscape.