Known in Irish as a rath, a ringfort is a roughly circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, built during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. They were the farmsteads of their era, places where families lived, kept livestock, and conducted the ordinary business of rural life. Ireland has tens of thousands of them, yet each one occupies a specific patch of ground with its own particular history, and the one at Derreen is no exception to that quiet individuality.