Ringforts, known in Irish as raths, are among the most common archaeological monument types in Ireland, with tens of thousands recorded across the country. They are the enclosed farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, typically circular in plan and defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, built to protect a family, their livestock, and their home from the general hazards of rural life between roughly the fifth and twelfth centuries. The Moyarta example is one of many such sites scattered across west Clare, a region where the Atlantic has worn the land into low, exposed ground that makes these earthwork enclosures, when they survive, unexpectedly readable from a distance.