This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the type of enclosed farmstead that once dotted the Irish countryside in its thousands during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Most were domestic in function, home to a farming family of some social standing, their livestock kept within the enclosing earthworks at night.

The earthwork here measures roughly 26 metres east to west and 24 metres north to south, a compact but well-defined circular area elevated above its surroundings by a scarp between 0.6 and 1 metre high. At the upper edge of this raised platform, faint traces remain of a bank, about 2.6 metres wide, though it has been largely levelled over time. Below the scarp runs a shallow fosse, the ditch that would originally have reinforced the defensive or enclosing character of the site, ranging from 2 to 3.5 metres in width. Beyond that fosse sits an outer bank, 3.6 to 4 metres wide and rising between 1 and 1.2 metres on its outer face. That outer bank has been quarried away on its southern side, a small but telling sign of the pragmatic attitude that later generations sometimes took toward these ancient earthworks, raiding them for stone or soil rather than preserving them intact. The positioning near the break of slope on the south-east side of the ridge is typical of early medieval settlement patterns, offering a degree of natural elevation and visibility without exposing the site to the full force of prevailing weather from the west.