What gives it away, to an attentive eye, is the low curve of an earthen bank tracing an almost circular outline across the ground, the remnant of a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the enclosed farmstead type that was the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, built and occupied roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries.

The site measures approximately 33 metres on its northeast to southwest axis and 31 metres northwest to southeast, making it a fairly modest example of the type. The enclosing bank, built of earth and stone, stands to an internal height of about half a metre, though on the south-southeast side the external face rises to around one and a half metres, suggesting the ground level drops slightly in that direction. On the western and northern sides the bank sits on a low natural scarp, a slight change in slope that the original builders appear to have incorporated into the enclosure's design. The bank is poorly preserved overall, with several eroded gaps interrupting its circuit. The largest of these, a broad opening about 12 metres wide on the eastern side with a ramp-like approach, is not original, meaning it was broken through at some point after the rath went out of use. Ridges of higher ground to the north, east, and west give the site a sheltered, slightly enclosed feeling within the wider landscape. Perhaps most suggestive is the presence of a second rath just 140 metres to the northwest, a pairing that hints at a small cluster of early settlement activity in this part of Mayo, two households or farmsteads occupying neighbouring ground in the same period.