This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, a class of enclosed farmstead built predominantly during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Thousands of them survive across Ireland in varying states of preservation, but this one rewards close attention precisely because it is so legible at ground level, its dimensions and details still readable despite centuries of agricultural activity pressing in around it.

The enclosure is nearly circular, measuring 29 metres north to south and 28 metres east to west, defined by a bank that has been reduced over time to a scarp between 1.4 and 1.6 metres high and roughly 3.15 to 3.3 metres wide. A fosse, the drainage ditch that typically accompanies such a bank, survives along the north-west to south-south-west arc, around seven metres wide overall with a base just under a metre and a half across. At the south-east, the fosse becomes noticeably wider and deeper, measuring some 14 metres by 10 metres and dropping to 1.4 metres; this irregularity has been interpreted as possible quarrying, suggesting the site was at some point a source of material as well as a place of habitation. A possible entrance gap of about 1.5 metres opens to the north, though it may be a later modification or simply the result of livestock passing through repeatedly over generations. A slight causeway feature nearby, around 2.5 metres wide, could equally be an original crossing of the fosse or an accumulation of soil slippage.

The well-grazed interior has, if anything, worked in favour of the archaeologist. The close-cropped grass makes visible a set of faint cultivation furrows running broadly north to south, roughly 1.5 metres wide but only about four centimetres deep, the kind of subtle trace that would vanish under longer vegetation or ploughing. On the exterior of the fosse at the north-east, a trigonometric point marks the spot, a modern surveying station that, in a modest way, continues the site's long association with commanding high ground.