Ringforts, known variously as raths or lios depending on local tradition, were the enclosed farmsteads of early medieval Irish families, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. A bank of earth, sometimes doubled or trebled for higher-status occupants, formed a boundary around a household and its outbuildings, offering a degree of security for people and livestock alike. That this one survives in Killard is itself a small curiosity, given how many comparable sites have been lost to centuries of agricultural change.