A modern iron gate marks a gap in the southern bank, and inside the enclosed circle stands a farm building, making this one of those places where Irish agricultural life has simply carried on within a structure that is roughly fifteen hundred years old, apparently without much ceremony about it.

A rath, the Irish term for this type of earthen ringfort, was the standard farmstead enclosure of early medieval Ireland, typically dating from around 500 to 1000 AD. They were built to protect livestock and family from wolves and rival neighbours rather than from organised armies, and thousands of them survive across the island in varying states of preservation. This example at Rathnacreeva is modest in scale, roughly 26 metres north to south and 27 metres east to west, enclosed by an earthen bank standing about 0.7 metres high. On the northern to eastern arc there is an external fosse, a shallow defensive ditch, cut to a depth of around 0.3 metres. A narrow gap on the eastern side, just under two metres wide, is thought to be the original entrance. The southern gap, more than four metres across and fitted with the iron gate, is clearly a later addition made to suit the needs of whoever eventually turned the interior into a farmyard.