Near Ballybunnion in north Kerry, a univallate rath, meaning a circular enclosure defined by a single earthen bank and ditch, survives only as a semi-circle. The western half of what was once a roughly 22-metre enclosure has been levelled entirely, its profile erased so thoroughly that no surface trace remains. What is left is an arc of low earthen bank, standing about 0.7 metres on the outside and 0.4 metres on the inside, with a base width of around 3 metres. It is an oddly affecting thing: the geometry of a complete circle implied by the curve of what remains, the rest of it simply gone.

The culprit is a fieldbank running north to south, which has divided the site more or less in two. At some point, the western sector was cleared, presumably to make the land more workable, and a modern road now runs east to west along the southern edge of the field. Raths of this kind were built across Ireland during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and served as enclosed farmsteads, their banks and ditches marking out a household's territory and providing some degree of security for livestock. The Ballybunnion example was recorded as part of C. Toal's North Kerry Archaeological Survey, published in 1995, which catalogued sites across this stretch of coastline and hinterland.