What survives is a patchwork of two different boundary types: a stone wall following the line of an original earthen bank along the western to eastern arc, and a scarp, a natural-looking step cut into the ground, running around the rest of the circuit and rising to about 1.4 metres in height. That mixture of construction methods is part of what makes it worth pausing over.

This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common monument type in the Irish countryside. Ringforts were enclosed farmsteads, typically of early medieval date, used to protect a family, their livestock, and their small agricultural world. They were defined by one or more concentric banks and ditches, sometimes reinforced with stone, sometimes purely earthen. The Garranereagh example follows that familiar plan, with a proper entrance to the east, 3.5 metres wide, which would have accommodated animals as well as people. There is also a narrow gap, just 0.6 metres across, to the west-southwest, perhaps a secondary access point or a later breach in the boundary. The interior is overgrown now, which is not unusual for a site in active pastureland, and that vegetation cover is in some ways protective, limiting the disturbance that comes with repeated ploughing or grazing pressure directly on the surface.