This is a rath, the most common type of early medieval enclosure found across Ireland, typically built as a farmstead between roughly the fifth and twelfth centuries. An earthen bank, with a fosse or ditch running around the outside, would have defined the boundary of a single family's world, enclosing a house, outbuildings, and livestock. This one at Dangan measures approximately 26.5 metres north to south and 28 metres east to west, dimensions that place it firmly within the ordinary range, though ordinary in this context means something built and inhabited more than a thousand years ago.

The enclosure is defined by an earthen bank roughly two metres wide at the crest and 4.5 metres at the base, with a shallow U-shaped fosse outside it just over two metres wide and less than half a metre deep. The bank still stands about two metres high on the exterior, though cattle have eroded and denuded it considerably over time. Two gaps interrupt the bank: one in the west quadrant, two metres wide, where an entrance was broken through to connect with a now-disused laneway running along the western exterior; and one directly opposite in the east quadrant, which, though widened over time, may represent the original entrance to the site. A further gap of about 1.5 metres in the southwest quadrant is the result of more recent cattle erosion. Beside the western entrance, in the old lane, there is a small stone structure of later date, its purpose unrecorded but its presence a reminder that the site continued to be used and passed through long after its original function was forgotten.

The interior is heavily overgrown, particularly in the northern and southern quadrants, where bramble growth makes close inspection difficult. The disused laneway along the west side is the clearest approach to the monument, though access to the interior itself is limited by the vegetation.