What makes the site quietly arresting is not grandeur but position: whoever built here chose carefully, taking advantage of a knoll with a steep natural drop on the southern side, so that the ground itself does the work of defence. The result is a flat-topped platform measuring about 55.5 metres on its longest axis, defined by a low scarp, or earthen edge, that drops roughly a metre around its circuit. Stones protrude along that edge, and on the south-western side a low stony rise, perhaps three metres wide, may preserve the remnants of a wall, though it is equally possible this is a survival of a townland boundary that, as the 1838 Ordnance Survey six-inch map shows, once cut directly across the western side of the rath.

A rath is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically circular or oval and defined by one or more earthen banks. This example in Puntabeg carries the usual uncertainties that come with a site that has never been excavated. The original entrance is not obvious; the north-eastern arc, where the outer slope is shallowest, is the most plausible candidate. In the centre of the interior, a low sod-covered stony rise may be nothing more than a field clearance heap. More intriguing is a hollow near the eastern scarp, irregular in shape and about 70 centimetres deep, which local tradition associates with a cave or souterrain. A souterrain is an underground passage, typically stone-lined, used in early medieval Ireland for storage or refuge, and the hollow here is consistent with a collapsed example, though nothing has been confirmed. Sand quarrying has bitten into the knoll at several points, leaving pits that press close to the rath's edge. The 1920 Ordnance Survey map shows the rath and its surrounding field planted with trees; those trees are gone now, but their stumps remain, scattered and decaying across the interior.