What makes it quietly odd is the gap between what was recorded and what remains. When the Ordnance Survey mapped this area in 1842, they drew a complete rectangular enclosure. Today, only an arc of that perimeter is visible, roughly 24.6 metres in length and standing about 1.7 metres high internally, with a break of around 4.2 metres on its eastern side. The rest has been absorbed into the surrounding field boundaries or has simply disappeared.

Enclosures of this type are a common but not always well-understood feature of the Irish countryside. They are broadly prehistoric or early medieval in origin, built to define and protect a settlement, an area of cultivation, or an area of ritual significance. The earthen bank here, what survives of it, would once have formed part of a defined boundary, and the break to the east is likely the original entrance. The 1842 OS six-inch map is a crucial document for sites like this one across Ireland, often preserving the outlines of features that have since been partially or wholly lost to farming and land improvement. In the case of Ratharoon, the map shows a shape that the ground no longer fully confirms, leaving the enclosure somewhere between an earthwork and a memory of one.