The enclosure measures roughly 38 metres east to west and 36 metres north to south, defined by an earthen bank or scarp that rises to around two metres on its western side. A trace of an outer fosse, the ditch that would originally have run around the outside of the bank, is still legible in places, and the original entrance can be made out facing east-south-east. It is the kind of place that rewards careful looking; from a distance it might read as nothing more than a slightly uneven field.

Earthwork enclosures of this type are found throughout Ireland and are broadly associated with the early medieval period, though many have earlier origins. They are sometimes called raths or ring-forts, and would once have served as enclosed farmsteads, the bank and fosse providing a degree of security for livestock and inhabitants alike. The Drumsheaver example sits on a north-east to south-west ridge above an otherwise low-lying landscape, a position that would have offered both drainage and a degree of visibility over the surrounding ground. Aerial imagery from 2013 suggests the interior had become considerably more overgrown compared with its condition in 1968, which means the structural details of the bank are now partly obscured by vegetation that was not there within living memory.