The monument is almost circular, measuring roughly 35.5 metres east to west and 34 metres north to south, but its defining features have been so worn down or cut away that reading the landscape here requires some patience. The bank that once enclosed the interior has left no visible trace along the north-east arc, and the external fosse, the ditch dug outside the bank as a further line of enclosure, survives only along the south-eastern, southern, and south-western portions of the circuit. What remains is less a monument in the conventional sense and more an outline, a suggestion of what the site once was.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when they are defined primarily by earthen banks and ditches, were the dominant form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth century. They served as enclosed farmsteads, protecting a household, its livestock, and its stores within a raised circular boundary. The Ballytrasna example has not fared especially well against the centuries. Quarrying has eaten into the monument at the west and south-east, and a well sits within the encroached area at the south-east. A field bank radiates outward from the south-west of the monument, possibly a later agricultural feature making use of whatever earthwork remained convenient. Inside the northern section of the interior, a small circular earthen mound about 3.5 metres in diameter is noted as appearing modern, which is a reminder that even damaged archaeological sites continue to attract small interventions long after their original purpose has been forgotten.