That impenetrability is, in its own way, part of the story: the enclosure has been left largely to itself, and the vegetation has obliged by closing ranks entirely.

What lies beneath the scrub is a rath, the term used for a roughly circular raised enclosure, typically of early medieval date, defined by an earthen bank and a surrounding ditch. These were once the farmsteads of reasonably prosperous families in early medieval Ireland, hundreds of which survive across the country in varying states of preservation. This particular example measures around 35 metres in diameter and is considered well preserved. Its defining bank remains legible, and the external fosse, a wide, shallow ditch running around the outside of the bank, is still clearly present. A handful of gaps interrupt the circuit, but these appear to be of modern rather than ancient origin, suggesting the basic structure has come through the centuries largely intact.