How a piece of early medieval farmland came to acquire such a reputation is not recorded, but the name alone suggests the site lodged itself in local memory for reasons beyond the ordinary. Ringforts, or raths, were typically enclosed farmsteads of the early medieval period, defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, and this one sits on a gently west-facing slope at Knockagolig, still within pasture.

The earthwork itself is nearly circular, measuring 51.2 metres east to west and 49.6 metres north to south. An earthen bank encloses the interior, standing about a metre high on the inside and nearly two metres on the outside, with an external fosse, or ditch, running around it. Two breaks in the bank likely mark original entrances, one to the east at 1.6 metres wide and a wider one to the southwest at just over two metres. The southwestern gap appears to have once extended a further three metres southward before being blocked by a later, low bank. Below ground, a possible souterrain may run through the interior; souterrains are stone-lined underground passages associated with ringforts, thought to serve as storage spaces or refuges. The southern half of the interior slopes noticeably downward. One further detail catches the eye: the grass-covered remains of a limekiln, a small structure once used to burn limestone into agricultural lime, sit embedded in the bank to the south-southeast, suggesting that long after the ringfort's primary use had ended, the raised ground of its own bank was repurposed as a convenient foundation for later agricultural work. The fosse remains waterlogged. The local name was recorded by Bowman in 1934, anchoring the oral tradition at least to that date.