It means the ground enclosed by the bank was either deliberately raised or has simply survived better than the fields around it, and standing inside gives the faint, vertiginous sense of occupying a space that has been quietly insisting on its own boundaries for well over a thousand years.

A univallate rath, meaning a ringfort enclosed by a single bank and ditch rather than multiple concentric rings, this example in Rathea sits on rising ground in north Kerry with long sightlines in most directions, particularly towards the south and east. The enclosing earthen bank averages around five metres wide, and while it is relatively modest in height across most of its circuit, the eastern side steepens considerably, reaching up to 2.2 metres on the exterior face. The exterior fosse, the drainage and defensive ditch that runs outside the bank, survives only on the northern through eastern to southern arc, where it measures roughly a metre wide and sits about 0.6 metres below the level of the surrounding land. The interior itself is roughly oval, around 41 metres north to south and 44 metres east to west. Two gaps break the bank, one to the north at three metres wide and a larger one to the south at 6.6 metres, likely the original entrance points, though centuries of agricultural use make it difficult to be certain which was primary. The site was recorded and described in Caroline Toal's North Kerry Archaeological Survey, published in 1995.