What makes this particular ringfort worth a second look is the evidence that its enclosing bank was faced with stone on both its inner and outer surfaces, a construction detail that would have given the whole enclosure a more deliberately architectural quality than the simple earthen rims that characterise many comparable sites.

Ringforts, known in the medieval Irish sources as raths, were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth century. They served as enclosed farmsteads, the bank and any associated ditch providing a combination of security, status display, and practical management of livestock. The Cashelboy example measures approximately 24.5 metres east to west and 22.5 metres north to south, with a bank that varies considerably in width, reaching 7.5 metres on the western side. The original entrance survives as a gap of about 2.8 metres in the south-eastern arc of the bank, a placement that would have given the occupants a view down the valley slope. More intriguing still are two adjacent hollows in the north-eastern quadrant of the interior, which may indicate a collapsed souterrain. A souterrain is an underground stone-lined passage or chamber, often built beneath ringfort interiors for storage or as a place of refuge, and their presence tends to suggest a settlement of some means and permanence.

The site sits within a modest valley whose orientation runs north-west to south-east, and the slope on which the ringfort stands would have offered both drainage and a degree of natural visibility across the surrounding ground, practical considerations that clearly guided whoever chose this particular patch of Sligo hillside more than a thousand years ago.