Souterrains are found in ringforts across Ireland and are generally thought to have served as places of refuge, cold storage, or both, their subterranean chill making them useful for preserving food as much as for hiding people. That this one survives with its lintel intact, accessible directly from the interior of the bank, gives the site a particular quiet interest.

The ringfort itself sits on the south-east-facing slope of a north-west to south-east ridge near Ross, positioned to catch the light and command a view across lower ground. It takes the form of a raised oval area, roughly 36.6 metres along its longer axis and just under 30 metres across, enclosed by a low bank of earth and stone around 3.6 metres wide and standing about 0.7 metres above the interior. Large kerb stones are visible at the inner face of the bank, suggesting it was carefully constructed rather than simply piled up. On the outer side, running from the south-west around through west to north-west, a fosse, essentially a defensive ditch, survives to a width of 4.4 metres and a depth of 1.1 metres, dimensions that would have made the whole circuit considerably more imposing in its original state. A poorly defined break in the bank on the southern side, about 2 metres wide, may mark where the original entrance once stood. In the north-east quadrant, faint traces of a low stone scarp, no more than 0.3 metres high and running for around 6 metres, hint at internal features that time has largely erased.

Ringforts of this type, known in Irish as raths, were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically enclosing a farmstead and its outbuildings. Most date to somewhere between the sixth and tenth centuries, though many continued in use or were modified over longer periods. The combination here of a well-preserved fosse, visible kerbing, and an intact souterrain entrance makes this a more legible example than many, where the earthworks have been reduced to little more than a slight rise in a field.