Three sides survive as a denuded bank of earth and stone, softened now by a line of trees, while the eastern side has vanished entirely, leaving no surface trace. That asymmetry, one edge present and three absent, gives the site the quality of something half-remembered rather than half-ruined.

Enclosures of this kind are a common feature of the Irish archaeological landscape, though their functions varied considerably. Some served as ringforts, the farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, while others enclosed ecclesiastical sites, burial grounds, or ceremonial spaces. This example, measuring roughly 55 metres east to west and 53 metres north to south, falls into the category of nearly square, which distinguishes it from the more typical circular or oval form of a ringfort. Internal divisions visible in the south-west quadrant suggest the space was once subdivided, possibly for separate activities or structures, and a field wall abuts the bank on the western side, indicating that later agricultural use overlapped with whatever came before. Knockmaa itself, the low hill looming nearby, carries its own weight in local tradition, associated in folklore with Finvara, the king of the Connacht fairies, which lends the surrounding landscape a slightly charged quality that archaeology alone cannot fully account for.