At Lickadoon in County Limerick, a ringfort sits in low-lying pasture that gives almost nothing away at first glance. The earthen bank that once enclosed the site has been levelled, and what survives is little more than a faint ripple in the ground, a sub-circular area roughly twenty metres across where the grass and soil still carry the ghost of something deliberate and long-inhabited.

Ringforts, sometimes called raths, were the most common form of enclosed settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from around the sixth to the twelfth centuries. They consisted of a circular area enclosed by one or more earthen banks, often with an external fosse, which is a ditch dug to reinforce the boundary and make the bank more imposing. The Lickadoon example was recorded on the 1924 Ordnance Survey six-inch map as a roughly circular enclosure measuring approximately thirty metres east to west and twenty-five metres north to south, with just such an earthen bank and outer fosse. What that mid-twentieth-century map captured has since diminished considerably. Denis Power, who compiled the site record uploaded in May 2013, noted that the enclosure had been levelled, with only the eastern to south-western arc still traceable as a low remnant bank, its interior height no more than fifteen centimetres and its exterior face a bare ten centimetres above the surrounding ground. The width of that surviving bank measures around 1.9 metres, enough to confirm its original purpose even if the scale is now hard to appreciate.

The site lies in gently undulating agricultural land, with Knockea Hill rising to the north-east and providing the only real visual landmark in an otherwise open landscape. Because so little of the bank survives above ground, the site rewards close attention rather than distant viewing. Visiting in winter or early spring, when vegetation is low, gives the best chance of reading the subtle contours that remain. There is no formal access or signage, and the land is agricultural, so anyone wishing to visit should make appropriate enquiries locally beforehand.