The enclosure is roughly fifty metres across, its circumference defined by an earthen bank and an external fosse, which is the term for a ditch dug as part of a defensive or boundary arrangement. What makes it quietly arresting is how much of the original design has survived: the fosse remains clearly readable in places, the southern entrance is still traceable, and a secondary opening to the south-west retains what are known as out-turned banks, where the enclosing earthwork splays outward on either side of a gap to funnel movement and make the threshold more deliberate.

The enclosure sits on a gentle south-east-facing slope at the foot of Carrickbyrne Hill's sharper gradient, a sheltered position that would have made it naturally inconspicuous from a distance. Its circular form, with a diameter running about fifty-one metres north to south and forty-seven metres east to west, places it broadly within the tradition of embanked enclosures found across Ireland, earthwork monuments whose origins and functions varied considerably; some were ceremonial, some enclosed settlements, and some served purposes that remain genuinely uncertain. The bank itself stands between roughly one and one and a half metres above the external ground level, while inside the enclosure it is considerably more modest, suggesting the material was largely thrown outward during construction. The primary entrance to the south is narrow, just one metre wide, with a causeway across the fosse of under two metres, which implies controlled rather than open access.