This one, near Coad in County Clare, does something different. It sits in a slight dip on a north-west-facing slope, with higher ground on all sides, which gives it an oddly sunken, half-hidden quality quite unlike the hilltop examples that tend to draw attention.

A rath, to use the more precise term, is an early medieval enclosure, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth century, defined by one or more earthen banks and used as a farmstead or the residence of a person of local standing. This particular example is subcircular in plan, measuring around 16.8 metres across the interior and 22.9 metres at its outer extent. The defining bank, built from earth and stone, runs about three metres wide, though it survives to a modest height of between 0.1 and 0.6 metres on the exterior face. The site was mapped as far back as the first Ordnance Survey six-inch edition of 1842 and again on the Cassini edition of 1920, which confirms it was a legible feature in the landscape for at least that long. By 1996 it had been reclassified in the Record of Monuments and Places simply as an Enclosure, a category that often reflects how much of a site has been lost rather than any serious doubt about its origins. Today the interior is overgrown with nettles and holds a substantial mound of spoil in its south-eastern quadrant, suggesting some disturbance at an unknown point, along with more recent deposited material. It is, by any measure, a poorly preserved example, but its presence on two separate historical map editions, and its quiet position folded into the slope, give it a character that tidier, more celebrated sites sometimes lack.