It appears on Ordnance Survey maps as far back as 1840, and by the 1916 edition had acquired a name: Ballaghboy Fort. That name has largely faded from use, but the earthwork itself is still there, measuring roughly 44 metres north to south and 48.5 metres east to west, a near-circle of raised ground that takes a moment to read in the landscape before its shape declares itself.

What visitors are looking at is a rath, the most common type of ringfort in Ireland, typically constructed during the early medieval period as an enclosed farmstead. This example is defined by an earthen scarp, a raised bank formed by piling soil inward from an encircling ditch, and by a fosse, the ditch itself, which is still traceable from the western to the eastern arc of the site and measures around six metres in width. The scarp reaches its greatest height of 2.2 metres at the south-south-west, where the natural ground drops away and the builders had most to gain from emphasising the bank. At the north-east, where the ground is higher and less defensive reinforcement was needed, it stands only 0.8 metres. A slight depression in the scarp on the eastern side may mark where an entrance gap or causeway once allowed access into the interior. A small section at the north-west has been quarried away at some point, removing part of the circuit, though the overall form remains legible. The interior slopes gently down toward the south-east and offers no surface traces of whatever structures once stood inside.