A ringfort, or rath, is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries, typically surrounded by one or more earthen banks and used as a defended homestead for a farming family. This one in Shanavally holds its form well enough that the detail of its construction is still readable from within.

The enclosure is roughly circular, measuring thirty metres on its north-south axis and just under thirty metres east to west, making it a fairly representative example of the type. The earthen bank reaches a height of just under two metres and is stone-faced in places, a detail that suggests some care in its original construction or later maintenance. To the south-west, the bank is accompanied by an external fosse, the ditch dug to provide material for the bank and to add a further obstacle to any approach. Two gaps break the circuit: one to the north-north-east, nearly three and a half metres wide, the other to the south-west, narrower at two metres, likely representing original entrance points. Inside, the ground slopes gently downward toward the north, and a low ridge runs across the interior on a north-south axis, a subtle feature that might once have divided the enclosed space in some functional way, though its precise purpose is not recorded.