What survives of the original enclosure is enough to read, but just barely: part earthwork, part modern field boundary, the two stitched together in a circuit that preserves the shape of something much older without quite being it anymore.

This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common type of early medieval settlement monument in the country. Ringforts were typically enclosed farmsteads, the homes of farming families and minor lords between roughly the fifth and twelfth centuries, defined by one or more banks and ditches encircling a domestic interior. At Parke, the enclosure measures thirty-four metres in diameter. From the east-south-east around through south to west, an earthen bank survives, around three metres wide and standing about 1.3 metres on its outer face at the southern point, with traces of an original stone facing still visible along its exterior. For the rest of the circuit, the ancient bank has been replaced by a modern field boundary that follows much the same line, suggesting the underlying form was recognised and incorporated into later land division rather than ploughed away entirely. At the south, a narrow gap, just 1.6 metres wide and lined with stone, may preserve the position of the original entrance, the threshold through which the people who built this place once passed daily.