The structure is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common type of early medieval monument in Ireland. Ringforts were typically enclosed farmsteads, built and occupied roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, where a family and their livestock would have lived within a protective perimeter. This one measures approximately 29.4 metres north to south and 30.5 metres east to west, making it a fairly typical example in terms of scale.

The earthen bank survives best along the western to southern arc, while a scarp, an abrupt slope in the ground rather than a built-up bank, does the work of enclosure elsewhere around the circuit. A shallow external fosse, essentially a ditch dug to provide material for the bank and to add a further obstacle, runs along the northern side. The entrance gap, just 1.4 metres wide, faces north-north-east. That narrow opening is one of the more telling details: ringfort entrances were deliberately modest, designed to be defensible, and their orientation sometimes carried practical or customary significance. The slight asymmetry of the surviving earthworks, bank on one side, scarp on another, is not unusual, since these sites were built from whatever the local ground offered and have been subject to centuries of agricultural activity since.