Its Irish name, Lisín an Tolamais, translates roughly as the little fort of the hollow or pit, and that detail alone hints at something worth paying attention to. A rath is an early medieval farmstead enclosure, typically circular, bounded by an earthen bank and external ditch, and used as a defended homestead rather than a military fortification. This one, known also as Lisheenatullamush, carries the usual shape but with a few features that make it more legible than most.

The enclosure is sub-circular in plan, with an internal diameter of 23.5 metres, and is defined by an earthen bank and fosse, the fosse being the external ditch that would have reinforced the bank both physically and as a barrier. What distinguishes this site slightly from a standard single-bank rath is the presence of a second outer bank running along the eastern sector only, a partial doubling of the defences that may reflect local topography or a later modification. The entrance faces south-south-east and is only 1.5 metres wide, its eastern side marked by a single upright slab. Inside, a roughly 6-metre-wide trackway runs along the northern and eastern edges of the interior, skirting the inner bank before exiting through one of two eroded gaps near an unusual angled corner in the north-west, where the otherwise regular curve of the bank breaks into a sharp angle. In the south-west of the interior, an earth and stone mound about 1.5 metres high contains two depressions that may represent the remains of hut-sites, one roughly rectangular and the other circular, both around three-quarters of a metre deep. These hollows are among the more evocative survivals at the site, suggesting the outline of domestic life carried out within these banks, ordinary and long vanished. The site was recorded and described by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey.