That kind of layering, an earthwork thousands of years old quietly absorbed into a working agricultural holding, is common enough across Ireland, but this particular example has a detail that sets it apart from most: it is unusually large. The roughly circular enclosure measures approximately 54 metres north to south and 47 metres east to west, dimensions that place it well above the typical range for a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, which was ordinarily a defended farmstead of the early medieval period enclosed by one or more earthen banks and a surrounding ditch known as a fosse.

The earthen bank survives in varied condition around the circuit. Along the north-east to south-east arc it has been levelled, likely through generations of agricultural activity, but elsewhere it is more legible. Along the south-south-west to south-west sector, the outer face of the bank has been reinforced or faced with dry-stone walling, a detail that suggests at least some deliberate modification at some point in the structure's long life. The external fosse, the ditch that would originally have run around the outside of the bank, remains visible from the south-south-west around to the north-west. The interior, which slopes gently downward toward the north, looks out over Ballynafid Lake some 360 metres to the north-west, a siting that would have given its original occupants a commanding view of the surrounding landscape. A second ringfort lies just 155 metres to the east, which raises the possibility that this part of the ridge was a place of some local significance, with more than one enclosed settlement in close proximity.