What makes it worth a second glance is precisely its ambiguity. The bank, around four metres wide and barely a metre high on its outer face, describes an enclosure approximately 36 metres across, yet there is no visible fosse, the defensive ditch that typically accompanies such earthworks, and no discernible entrance. One side is not even a bank at all, just a faint scarp where the earthwork has been removed or has worn away entirely over time.

Enclosures of this kind are scattered across the Irish countryside and are generally understood as remnants of early medieval settlement, farming activity, or ceremonial use, though without excavation it is rarely possible to say which. A rath, sometimes called a ringfort, is the commonest form: a roughly circular area enclosed by one or more earthen banks and ditches, where a family or small community would have lived during the early medieval period. The Killowen example is classed as an embanked enclosure rather than a rath proper, partly because its D-shape and the missing fosse give it a subtly different character. Adding to the puzzle, a possible rath sits roughly 50 metres to the north-east, recorded separately in the county's archaeological inventory. Whether the two were in use at the same time, or whether one preceded the other, remains an open question. A stream runs some 110 metres to the south-west, which would have been a practical asset for any settled occupation of the slope.