At Templeusque in County Cork, a ringfort once stood in what is now ordinary pastureland, its circular earthen bank enclosing a space roughly thirty metres across. Today there is nothing to see. The site has been levelled entirely, leaving no visible surface trace.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths, were enclosed farmsteads typically built during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. They were usually formed by one or more circular earthen banks and ditches, and they served as the domestic and agricultural centres of rural life across Ireland for several centuries. Thousands once existed across the country. The Templeusque example was recorded as a circular enclosure on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1842, which means it was still recognisable as a feature in the landscape at that point, even if already diminished. At some stage after that survey, it was removed altogether, most likely through agricultural improvement, the gradual ploughing and levelling that claimed so many similar sites throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. What the 1842 map captured was essentially a last sighting.