That collision between an ancient earthwork and a later cartographic division gives the site an odd quality: two different eras of organising territory, laid one on top of the other.

A rath, to use the Irish term, is a ringfort, the kind of circular enclosed settlement that tens of thousands of farming families built across Ireland roughly between 500 and 1000 AD. Most consisted of an earthen bank and ditch surrounding a homestead, and this example in Curraghgraigue follows that basic pattern. The surviving remains form a circular platform roughly 21.8 metres across, east to west, defined by a scarp about a metre high, a fosse (or ditch) some 5.6 metres wide, and a low curving bank. The bank itself is modest now, barely a quarter of a metre above the interior surface, but the overall form of the enclosure is still readable in the pastureland. What makes the arrangement slightly more complex is the evidence of an external fosse on the southern side of the townland boundary, an additional ditch roughly 3.6 metres wide and 0.24 metres deep, suggesting the original design included at least a secondary line of demarcation around the outer edge. The site sits on a break in a steep north-west-facing slope, with the ground rising sharply to the south-east, a position that would have offered reasonable visibility and drainage to whoever occupied it.