On the shoulder of a low, isolated hill known as Friarstown Hill or Tara Hill, roughly 7.5 kilometres south of Limerick City, a large sub-oval enclosure wraps around the hilltop in rolling pasture. It measures approximately 165 metres east to west and 157 metres north to south, giving it a total footprint of around 2.1 hectares. The enclosure is defined by a scarped edge, a fosse (a ditch cut into the ground), and an external bank, all of which survive best to the south-east and south-west, where plough damage has been less severe. There are no recorded entrance features, no obvious internal structures visible at the surface, and the outer bank may be a counterscarp, meaning it was thrown up from the ditch rather than deliberately constructed as a separate feature. Even the basic question of what kind of monument this is remains unresolved.

The site was first identified not by archaeologists walking the ground but by aerial photography, spotted in oblique photographs taken by the Cambridge University Committee for Aerial Photography on 20 July 1968. A site visit by Kelly and Condit in 1998 partly recorded the enclosing elements, and their assessment was that the monument is best interpreted as a henge, a type of Neolithic or Bronze Age ceremonial enclosure typically defined by a bank and internal ditch, associated with ritual rather than defensive use. The Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland has since pushed back on that reading, arguing that the commanding position of the enclosure and the configuration of its banks and ditch point more towards a hillfort. A second monument sits immediately to the south-west on the summit of Friarstown Hill itself, which adds further complexity to the picture. Elsewhere on the site, an oval depression in the south-south-east appears to have been quarried, possibly in antiquity, and a lime kiln, a small stone furnace once used to burn limestone for agricultural lime, has been built into the scarp on the north-west side, a reminder that the land has been worked continuously across many centuries.

The enclosing elements are subtle on the ground and require some patience to read in the landscape. The south-east and south-west sections survive best, so approaching from those directions gives the clearest sense of the original form. Views from the site are extensive to the north, east, and south, though the summit of Friarstown Hill blocks the outlook to the west. The monument sits in working farmland, so access requires care and consideration for the landowner. A low-angled light, early morning or late afternoon, tends to bring out earthwork features most clearly, making the scarped edge and bank easier to trace across the grass.