What makes this particular site quietly odd is the layering of two very different eras of land management in a single spot: a medieval or early medieval rath, a type of enclosed farmstead defined by an earthen bank and surrounding ditch, with a later field bank built directly on top of part of its perimeter, as though the older structure were simply convenient raw material.

The rath measures roughly 51 metres in diameter. A rath, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a circular enclosure built from a raised earthen bank and an outer fosse or ditch, and was a common form of enclosed settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically associated with a single farming family. Here, the encircling fosse survives in parts, running from the north-east around through the east and south-east, and again from the south around to the west, though it has been poorly preserved overall. The north-facing arc of the original bank has been obscured or reinforced by a field bank running from the north-west through north to north-east, almost certainly a later agricultural boundary laid down during the organised improvement of the Clonbrock demesne. The Clonbrock estate was the seat of the Dillon family, later the Barons Clonbrock, who held extensive lands in this part of east Galway for several centuries and whose demesne was substantially shaped and planted from the eighteenth century onward.