Its bank, still standing 2.7 metres high, encloses a roughly circular area measuring around 38.5 metres on its northeast to southwest axis and 34.3 metres northwest to southeast. What makes the construction quietly interesting is a detail on the outer face of that bank: stone facing survives on its upper half, and this may be original rather than later repair, suggesting the builders intended a more finished, perhaps more imposing, appearance than a simple earthwork alone would provide.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when earthen, were the most common form of enclosed settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Most were farmsteads, their banks and ditches marking out a defended living space for a family and their livestock rather than anything resembling a military fortification. The Moneygaff example shows the practical thinking behind such construction: because the enclosed ground slopes on its eastern side, the interior has been deliberately raised there to create a level living surface. The single gap in the bank, a break to the west roughly 2.8 metres wide, would have served as the entrance. These details, the levelled floor, the faced bank, the carefully sized opening, point to a structure that was built with care and used by people who understood their ground well.