What makes it quietly compelling is not dramatic stonework or obvious antiquity, but the way the surrounding landscape seems to have worked around it. The lazy beds that pattern the rest of the field, ridge-and-furrow cultivation earthworks associated with subsistence farming, particularly in the pre-Famine period, stop short of the enclosure's interior. Whoever cut those furrows knew something was there, and left it alone.

The enclosure itself is roughly circular, measuring 23.3 metres north to south and 22.5 metres east to west, defined by a low earth and stone bank that varies slightly in profile around its circuit. Along the northern edge the bank is a little more substantial, reaching about 50 centimetres in external height and 2.3 metres in width, while the western side is somewhat lower and narrower. Stone heaped against the bank on the north and north-east is most likely the result of field clearance rather than original construction. A possible entrance lies at the south-south-east, though it is obscured by gorse. The interior drops roughly a metre from east to west in keeping with the hillside slope, though the ground appears to have been cut back slightly into the hill to create a more level platform. Near the centre is a barely perceptible hollow, approximately 4.5 metres across, which may be the remains of a hut site. Enclosures of this kind, defined by a earthen or stone bank and enclosing a domestic or agricultural space, are found widely across Ireland and are generally associated with early medieval settlement, though dating individual examples without excavation is difficult.

The site is most accessible in late autumn or winter, when the bracken has died back. During summer, the vegetation is dense enough to obscure the monument almost entirely. The extensive westward views from the slope give some sense of why this particular position on Cronelea Hill might once have been chosen.