The example at Rockfield in County Mayo is a rath, the term used for a ringfort constructed primarily from earthworks rather than stone, typically a raised circular bank enclosing a farmstead where an early medieval family would have lived, kept livestock, and gone about the business of daily life. Ireland has somewhere in the region of 40,000 to 50,000 such sites recorded, though many have been lost to agriculture and development over the centuries, which makes the survival of any individual example worth noting.