At Loughanstown in County Westmeath, a ringfort that was still physically present in 1970 had, by 2011, been levelled to the point where its existence is legible only as a faint crop mark on an aerial photograph. That trace, a ghostly circular outline pressed into the ground, is now essentially all that remains of what was once a recognisable earthwork enclosure.

A ringfort, sometimes called a rath, is a roughly circular area enclosed by one or more earthen banks and ditches, typically built during the early medieval period in Ireland as a farmstead or high-status residence. The Loughanstown example sat on an east-north-east facing slope just below the summit of a steep hill, with the surrounding hills closing in the views on most sides. When it was recorded in 1970, it measured approximately 33 metres across its north-east to south-west axis, enclosed by a poorly preserved earthen bank with a slight external ditch visible from the south-west. The bank had been steepened at the western side, and a wooden gate marked a gap at the north-north-east. Field fences already cut across the perimeter at several points, and the interior sloped steeply inward toward the north-north-east, suggesting the hill's natural topography had always shaped its character. What makes the site particularly notable in its quiet way is its density of neighbours: another ringfort sits around 150 metres to the north-west, and a third lies roughly 200 metres to the south-east, pointing to a stretch of early medieval landscape that was once considerably more populated than it appears today.