Someone, at some point well after the original enclosure was constructed, found the southern bank a convenient place to hollow out and fire limestone, pressing an ancient boundary into service as industrial infrastructure. The two uses belong to entirely different eras, yet the physical evidence of both survives in the same stretch of earth and stone.

A ringfort, or rath, is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth century. They were the standard unit of rural settlement across Ireland for centuries, built to protect a family, its livestock, and its stores. This example at Shanaway sits on a gentle south-south-east-facing slope in pasture, a orientation that would have offered decent shelter and light. The enclosure is nearly circular, measuring 38 metres north to south and 37 metres east to west, and the earthen bank that defines it still stands around 1.5 metres high, stone-faced in places where the original construction or later repair demanded something more durable. A gap 3.4 metres wide in the eastern bank marks an original or long-used entrance. Beneath the interior, a souterrain survives: an underground stone-lined passage or chamber, features commonly found within ringforts and believed to have served for storage, refuge, or both. The lime kiln cut into the southern bank is a later addition, a reminder that these earthworks were rarely left untouched by subsequent generations who found them useful in ways their builders never intended.