That doubled arrangement, an inner bank and a separate outer bank separated by a flat berm, is what sets this enclosure apart from simpler field boundaries or single-banked farmsteads. Someone went to considerable effort here, and the geometry of the place still rewards close attention even though centuries of weather and farming have softened its edges.

The enclosure measures approximately 27 metres north to south and 22 metres east to west. The inner bank runs to nearly six metres wide, while the outer bank, which reaches an external height of around 1.35 metres, is separated from it by a berm of roughly nine metres. At the south-west and north-east corners, the outer bank turns at a right angle and connects back to the inner one, giving the whole structure a deliberate, almost architectural logic. The interior itself has been raised and levelled by hand, compensating for the natural westward slope of the hillside, which suggests the ground inside mattered enough to justify that labour. No original entrance survives in a recognisable form. Towards the eastern side of the interior, the traces of a house site can still be made out, hinting that this was once a domestic space of some kind, though whether the enclosure and the house belong to the same period of use is not clear.

Enclosures of this type, with their combination of banks and intervening flat berms, are found across Ireland and can date from anywhere in the early medieval period onward. The berm, that level strip of ground between two banks, is sometimes interpreted as a drainage feature and sometimes as a structural element adding stability or additional defence. At Carrownree the site sits in ordinary undulating pasture on a west-facing slope, easy to miss unless you know to look for the slight elevation and the broad, grassy ridges that mark out its perimeter.