The site measures around thirty metres in diameter and is defined by an earthen bank rising to about one and a half metres on its interior face, with a second, lower bank running from the south-east towards the north and standing at roughly eighty-five centimetres. Between the two banks runs a fosse, essentially a defensive ditch, following the same south-east to north arc. That combination of bank, fosse, and outer bank is the classic anatomy of a multivallate rath, a category of ringfort that suggests somewhat more elaborate enclosure than the single-banked variety.

Ringforts, known variously as raths or lios, were the predominant settlement type in early medieval Ireland, broadly from the fifth to the twelfth century. They functioned primarily as enclosed farmsteads, the earthen banks and ditches protecting a family's livestock and dwelling from both animal predators and rival neighbours rather than serving any formal military purpose. Thousands survive across the Irish countryside in varying states of preservation, though many have been levelled by agriculture or development over the centuries. The one at Kilmoney sits on a north-facing slope in pasture, which has helped preserve the earthworks physically even as vegetation has since smothered them. The two-bank arrangement here, modest but distinct, would once have marked this as the home of a family of some local standing, the extra effort of construction signalling a degree of status within the community.