The rath at Latoon in County Clare is one such site, a ringfort being a roughly circular enclosure, typically defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, that served as a farmstead and place of refuge during the early medieval period, broadly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Most were home to a single family and their livestock, and the word rath specifically refers to an earthwork construction, as opposed to a cashel, which uses stone.

Latoon itself is a townland in County Clare, a county with a particularly dense concentration of early medieval settlement evidence. Clare's landscape, ranging from the limestone pavements of the Burren to the more fertile lowlands further south and east, supported a substantial farming population throughout the early medieval centuries, and ringforts were the standard unit of rural habitation across that world. Beyond its classification and location, the detailed history of this particular enclosure remains to be fully documented in the public record.