Between the first Ordnance Survey mapping of Ireland in 1837 and the revised edition published in 1911, a substantial ringfort of roughly forty metres in diameter simply disappeared from the landscape. Where the earlier map records a large circular enclosure, the later one shows nothing. The earthwork had been levelled in the intervening decades, and what was once a raised, defined structure became agricultural ground.

Ringforts, sometimes called raths, are among the most common early medieval monument types in Ireland, typically dating from around the fifth to the twelfth century. They functioned as enclosed farmsteads, their circular banks and ditches defining domestic and agricultural space rather than serving a purely defensive purpose. The example at Balroe sat atop its hillock with extensive views across gently undulating grassland, a position typical of the type, where visibility and drainage were practical advantages. Today, only a curving raised scarp remains, running from the south-southwest around to the west and from the northeast to the east, along with a wide shallow fosse, the term for the ditch that would have fronted the original bank, and traces of an outer bank beyond it. The interior has been further disturbed by quarrying, which has left depressions across the ground. The site sits within a notably dense cluster of monuments: another ringfort lies roughly two hundred metres to the west, and the remains of a nunnery are just seventy-five metres to the southwest. The Royal Canal and Balroe Bridge are only forty metres away to the west, meaning this hillock once looked out over both ancient and post-medieval infrastructure in close proximity.