But the concentric arrangement of bank, fosse, and outer earthwork marks this out as a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common type of early medieval enclosure in the country. Thousands were built across Ireland, typically between the sixth and tenth centuries, and most served as enclosed farmsteads for a single family and their livestock. What makes this particular example quietly interesting is the combination of its careful siting and its stubborn local name: it is known in the area as Lisheen Kelly, a diminutive of the Irish word "lios", meaning a fort or enclosure, paired with a surname that anchors it to a specific, if now unidentified, family.

The enclosure measures roughly 28 metres in diameter and is defined by a substantial bank that has in places been reduced to a scarp, a sloped face rather than a clean raised edge. A fosse, the ditch that typically ran just outside the main bank, survives as a broad terrace on the northern and eastern sides, its outer edge dropping sharply where it merges with the natural fall of the ground. There are remnants of a second, outer bank at the south-west, suggesting the site may once have had a double enclosure, a feature associated with higher-status occupants. Parts of the fosse have been cut through by a patch of old quarrying, now swallowed by overgrowth. Inside, the eastern half is dense with blackthorn scrub, and a faint linear rise running through the interior on a north-west to south-east axis may be a cultivation ridge or the ghost of an internal field bank. Large stones visible on the inner north-eastern edge of the bank may be the remains of a kerb or stone facing. The probable entrance is on the eastern side, facing level ground and the river beyond, marked by a narrow gap of about a metre, roughly stone-faced on one side.