Less remarked upon is the ringfort, or rath, that shares this landscape, sitting quietly in a region so thick with early medieval earthworks that they become almost easy to overlook.

Ringforts are among the most common archaeological monuments in Ireland, with estimates of around 50,000 once scattered across the country. They were built roughly between 500 and 1000 AD, serving as enclosed farmsteads for prosperous families, their circular banks and ditches defining domestic space as much as offering protection. In the Burren especially, where the limestone plateau preserves the outlines of ancient field systems with unusual clarity, these enclosures survive in remarkable numbers. The rath at Ballynalackan belongs to this broader pattern of early medieval settlement, a period when the landscape was being organised and farmed at a scale that would shape landholding for centuries to come.

The Burren rewards slow movement. Ringforts in this part of Clare are often best appreciated from a slight distance, where the curve of a bank becomes legible against the grey and silver of the limestone. The proximity of the Ballynalackan castle, a fifteenth-century tower house associated with the O'Brien family, means that this corner of the townland layers several distinct periods of occupation into a small area, each one making the others slightly stranger and more vivid.