The enclosure is not dramatic; its defining scarp rises only between 0.7 and 1.1 metres above the surrounding field, and the external fosse, a defensive ditch encircling the bank, is described as wide but shallow. Yet the proportions are deliberate and ancient, roughly 42 metres from north-north-west to south-south-east and about 38 metres across the shorter axis, forming the kind of subcircular shape that would have enclosed a farmstead or a family's compound during the early medieval period in Ireland.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when formed primarily from earthworks rather than stone, were the dominant settlement type in Ireland from roughly the sixth to the twelfth century. Thousands survive across the country, though many have been lost to agriculture and development. The Pallas More example was already being recognised as a notable feature of the local landscape when the Ordnance Survey produced its six-inch map in 1837, where it was marked simply as a circular enclosure labelled 'Fort'. A field report from 1976 confirmed the structure's surviving elements: the low bank of earth and stone, the encircling fosse, and a depression approximately two metres wide on the south-south-east side, which may represent the position of the original entrance. Entrances on the eastern or south-eastern side are common in Irish ringforts, possibly for reasons connected to orientation toward the rising sun or simply prevailing practicality.