What makes Carrickconeen unusual is not just its scale but its complexity: the roughly D-shaped perimeter, measuring approximately 64 metres north to south and nearly 81 metres east to west, contains within it a rectangular sub-enclosure in the south-east quadrant, two raised internal platforms, a small near-circular enclosure pressed against the western bank, and a low central mound with a shallow depression at its crown. The whole arrangement implies a site that once had distinct functional zones, even if what those functions were remains a matter of inference.

The enclosing bank is earthen with a substantial stone content, and an original entrance survives in the western quadrant, roughly 2.26 metres wide, with an external bank running east to west towards it that may represent the southern edge of an old roadway. A fosse, the term for a ditch dug outside a rampart as an additional defensive or boundary feature, appears in the north-east quadrant, though its sharp profile suggests it is relatively recent, possibly the result of nearby quarrying activity rather than original construction. That quarry, a small limestone working, sits immediately to the north-west. Not everything here is ancient disturbance: cattle erosion has opened a break in the north-east bank, and farm machinery now passes through what was once the original entrance. Nicholastown Castle is visible to the west, and two further enclosures to the south-west, both now levelled into the ground, would once have formed part of the same wider landscape. The site finds its closest parallels in divided enclosures recorded at Annacrivey and Ballymaghroe in Wicklow, and at Commons in Louth, suggesting a broadly recognised monument type whose purpose archaeologists are still working to understand.