It is an unassuming feature in the landscape if you do not know what you are looking at, but its proportions tell a specific story: an interior spanning approximately 21 metres north to south and 23 metres east to west, enclosed by a bank that still stands up to 2.1 metres high and averages 5.5 metres wide at its base. That is a serious earthwork, even in its present, somewhat reduced state.

This is a univallate rath, meaning a ringfort enclosed by a single bank and ditch, the most common form of early medieval settlement in Ireland. Thousands were built across the country, typically between the sixth and tenth centuries, serving as the farmsteads of free farming families. What makes the Ballynahunt example worth a closer look is the detail that survives, and the detail that has been altered. The SW quadrant of the enclosing bank has been noticeably reduced, standing only around 1.6 metres on the outside and a mere 0.25 metres on the interior side, suggesting deliberate levelling at some point, possibly to ease agricultural access. The SE-facing entrance has been considerably widened and now measures 5.5 metres across, far broader than an original early medieval entrance would typically have been. It slopes gradually upward from the surrounding field level to the raised interior, and along the upper edge of the slope on the north-east side of the entrance, a line of stones set on edge may be the remnant of an original entrance feature, perhaps a kerb or threshold marker, surviving despite everything that has changed around it. The rath was documented by J. Cuppage as part of the Dingle Peninsula Archaeological Survey published in 1986, a systematic catalogue of the extraordinary density of ancient remains on the Corca Dhuibhne peninsula.