But that bank, partial and worn as it is, is all that remains of a rath, an early medieval enclosure of the kind that once served as a farmstead or small settlement, typically occupied between roughly 500 and 1000 AD. Thousands were built across Ireland; many have since vanished altogether. This one is hanging on, just about.

The site sits on a steep slope in a small stream valley running north to south, set just below the crest of a hill in rolling grassland near Seskin. The original enclosure was roughly circular, measuring approximately 24 metres north to south and 20 metres east to west, with a broad earthen bank about 3 metres wide still traceable around the surviving portion. The bank stands only modestly above the interior ground level, somewhere between 40 and 50 centimetres on the inner face and a little higher, around 70 to 80 centimetres, on the exterior. These are not dramatic earthworks, but the proportions are consistent with a typical rath construction, where the bank would have defined and defended a domestic space, perhaps enclosing a timber house and outbuildings. What makes this particular example harder to read is that a modern trackway has removed the entire eastern half of the monument, leaving only a semicircle of earthwork where a complete ring once stood.