This oval ringfort in Milltown, County Westmeath sits on low-lying, poorly drained land just thirty metres from the Yellow River, which has a habit of flooding the surrounding area. It is not the kind of spot most people would select for a homestead, which makes its presence all the more intriguing.

A ringfort, or rath, is an enclosed farmstead of early medieval Ireland, typically circular or oval, defined by one or more earthen banks and a fosse, the ditch dug to create the bank material. This example measures roughly seventeen metres north to south and twenty metres east to west. It retains a poorly preserved outer earthen bank in addition to the main bank, and the wide shallow fosse between them, though the fosse has been filled in along the western side. The most legible feature remaining is the entrance at the south-east: a gap of about four and a half metres, with a causeway just under three metres wide and a quarter of a metre high still marking the threshold. The interior slopes gently from east to west and is scattered with natural humps and hollows. The Yellow River itself forms the townland boundary here, separating Milltown from the townland known as Benison Lodge or Bratty. The fort does not stand alone in this landscape either; another ringfort lies roughly 340 metres to the north-east, and an earthwork sits about 700 metres to the south-west, suggesting a broader pattern of early settlement across this part of Westmeath.