The enclosure is roughly circular, measuring 26 metres north to south and 31 metres east to west, dimensions that place it comfortably within the range of a typical rath, the earthen equivalent of a ringfort. On its eastern to north-western arc, the bank still stands to a height of 1.4 metres, substantial enough to give a clear sense of the original boundary. Elsewhere, the earthwork has been reduced to a scarp of about 0.4 metres, worn down by time and grazing animals but still traceable across the ground.

Raths like this one were the most common form of enclosed settlement in early medieval Ireland, built and occupied roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. They functioned as farmsteads, the bank and whatever fence or hedge sat on top of it forming a boundary that was as much about defining territory and status as about providing serious defence. Thousands survive across the Irish countryside, many reduced to faint cropmarks or slight undulations in a field, but this example at Scartagh retains enough of its earthen bank to give a visitor a reasonable impression of its original form. The fact that it sits in pasture rather than arable land has almost certainly helped preserve it; ploughing has destroyed a great many comparable sites elsewhere in the country.