What it represents, however, is something considerably older than the demesne itself: a rath, or earthen ringfort, the kind of enclosed farmstead that thousands of early medieval Irish families once lived within. Most ringforts consisted of a circular bank, sometimes accompanied by a fosse, the ditch dug to provide the material for the bank itself, and this one follows that basic form, though the fosse has either silted away or was never pronounced enough to survive at ground level.

The rath measures roughly 20 metres in diameter, enclosed by a low, broad earthen bank approximately 5.4 metres wide and just 0.3 metres high internally. Those are modest dimensions, and the overall effect on the ground is subtle rather than dramatic. A small section of the bank on the north-northwest to north-northeast side has been cut away, most likely by quarrying activity, leaving a shallow bite out of the circuit measuring roughly 2 metres north to south and 4 metres east to west. Where the original entrance once lay is no longer apparent; the bank has settled and worn to the point where no gap or causeway can be identified with confidence.