The ground inside dips slightly, giving the enclosed area a shallow, saucer-like profile, the result of an inner earthen bank that never rose very high to begin with. Two banks encircle the space, separated by a fosse, the ditch dug between them to increase the defensive effect, and together they trace an outline almost perfectly round: just under 47 metres north to south, just under 46 metres east to west.

This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common type of early medieval settlement monument in the Irish landscape. Typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth century, raths were enclosed farmsteads, their banks and ditches marking the boundary of a family's domain as much as providing any serious military defence. This example sits atop an east-west ridge, a position that would have made good practical sense, offering visibility across the surrounding terrain. The outer bank, standing around 1.4 metres high, is heavily overgrown, and the southern section has been disturbed, with the fosse between the banks filled in at that point. To the north-north-west, a gap four metres wide marks the original entrance, approached by a causeway crossing the fosse, a detail that survives clearly enough to still give the structure its orientation and something of its original logic.