Roughly 18.5 metres east to west and 15 metres north to south, the feature has a gently sloping interior and sits just prominently enough above its surroundings to suggest it was not put there by accident. A modern field boundary clips one edge of it, compounding the difficulty of reading what was once, presumably, a complete and deliberate form.

What makes the earthwork at Carrickhenry quietly puzzling is the absence of the usual diagnostic details. There is no bank encircling it, no ditch, and no identifiable entrance. These are the features archaeologists typically look for when trying to categorise a raised circular earthwork, whether as a rath (a ringfort of the early medieval period, usually defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches enclosing a domestic space), a burial mound, or something else entirely. Without them, the feature sits in an awkward classificatory space. It was clearly shaped or at least used by people at some point, occupying a commanding position in the landscape in the way that deliberate constructions often do, but the evidence needed to say much more than that is simply not there.