What makes it worth a second look is a small but telling piece of engineering: the interior has been deliberately raised on its southern side to level out the slope of the hill beneath it. Whoever built this place was not simply piling up earth at random but making careful adjustments to the landscape so that the enclosed ground would sit flat and usable.

A rath, as this type of monument is technically classified, is a roughly circular enclosure defined by an earthen bank and, usually, a ditch on the outer edge. They were built across Ireland during the early medieval period, broadly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and served primarily as farmsteads, the bank and fosse offering a degree of protection for a family and their livestock rather than any serious military defence. This example measures approximately 41 metres north to south and 40 metres east to west, making it a fairly standard size for the type. The enclosing bank still stands to around 1.6 metres in height, and a shallow external fosse, the ditch that would originally have provided the material for the bank, remains visible around it. Thousands of raths once dotted the Irish countryside; a significant number have been levelled by agriculture over the centuries, which makes the survival of one in reasonable condition, still sitting on its knoll above the surrounding fields, quietly noteworthy.