What was once a well-defined oval earthwork is now, in large part, a quarry, its ancient banks cut away and its interior pockmarked by extraction. The same prominence that made this spot attractive to early medieval settlers, commanding clear views in all directions, apparently made it equally attractive to those looking for gravel.

A ringfort, or rath, is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically circular or oval in plan and defined by one or more earthen banks with an external ditch, called a fosse. The Ballyowen example sits on a naturally formed hillock rather than constructed ground, which is itself an unusual arrangement, and the elevation means the banks double as both enclosure and vantage point. The revised Ordnance Survey map of 1913 recorded it as an oval earthwork measuring roughly 55 metres on its northeast to southwest axis and 44 metres across. By 1970, when the monument was formally described, the enclosing bank had already been worn down to little more than a scarp along much of its western and northern arc, and no trace of a fosse remained visible. A gap of about 5.5 metres at the north was interpreted as a probable entrance, with large stones still lying on the surface just inside at the west. Two pronounced internal banks ran from the western and northwestern perimeter inward toward the centre, where a modern depression and a small quarry hole marked the point at which the damage became most legible. A second ringfort lies roughly 165 metres to the north-northwest, suggesting this hillocky stretch of Westmeath once held more organised settlement than the bare pasture now implies.

By the time aerial photography was assessed from Digital Globe imagery, much of what remained of the monument had been absorbed into active quarrying. The gravel hillock that preserved the site for over a millennium has, in a certain irony, become the reason it is disappearing.