The earthwork on top of a prominent drumlin at Aroddy in County Leitrim has nothing to do with Vikings or Danes. "Danish fort" was a label applied across rural Ireland to ancient enclosures whose true origins were forgotten or simply unexplained, a way of attributing mystery to something that predated living memory. What actually sits on this glacially deposited hill is a ringfort, or at least something closely resembling one, a type of enclosed farmstead that was the standard unit of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, built and occupied roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries.

The enclosure is subcircular in plan, measuring approximately 29 metres east to west and 26.5 metres north to south on the interior. It is defined by an earthen bank, now heavily overgrown with grass and rushes, that stands considerably more impressive on its outer face, reaching an external height of around 2.15 metres, than it does internally, where it rises only a quarter to half a metre above the enclosed ground. Outside the bank runs a flat-bottomed fosse, the ditch that would originally have been dug to provide the material for the bank itself, nearly four metres wide at its base. No original entrance has been identified, which is not unusual for earthworks that have been left unexcavated and gradually softened by centuries of agricultural use and vegetation growth. The drumlin setting would have made the site naturally prominent and defensible, with clear views across the surrounding landscape.