The ground has been levelled over time, likely by centuries of farming, yet the shape of the thing has refused to disappear entirely. A broad enclosing bank still traces a roughly circular outline, measuring about nineteen metres across from north to south and just under eighteen metres east to west, with a wide outer fosse, or ditch, running around it. That ditch is five metres across, which is substantial for a site of this size, suggesting the original construction was a serious undertaking rather than a casual boundary-marking exercise.

This is a rath, one of the thousands of ringforts scattered across the Irish countryside, most of them dating to the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. A ringfort typically consisted of one or more concentric earthen banks and ditches enclosing a domestic space, used by farming families as a homestead and for the corralling of livestock. The entrance at Curraghleigh survives in the south-western quadrant, a gap 3.5 metres wide in the bank, oriented towards the river and the lower ground below. The interior bank still stands to an internal height of around 0.83 metres, while the outer face has been worn considerably lower, to roughly 0.35 metres. These are modest figures, reduced further by the levelling that has affected the site, but they are enough to read the original layout with reasonable confidence. The placement near water and on a gentle lower slope rather than a commanding height is fairly typical of agricultural ringforts, which prioritised access to grazing and fresh water over any defensive advantage.