What looks at first like a natural undulation turns out to be a grass-covered earthen bank, subcircular in plan, enclosing an area roughly 21.5 metres across at its longest and 16.5 metres at its widest. There is no fosse, the defensive ditch that typically accompanies such enclosures, which makes Carrickatee a little unusual among Irish earthwork forts. Without that surrounding ditch, the bank reads more as a boundary than a fortification, though the two purposes were rarely entirely separate.

This kind of enclosure is broadly classified as a ringfort, a form of enclosed settlement that was widespread in early medieval Ireland, typically used by farming families as a homestead with some degree of defensive or status-marking function. At Carrickatee, the bank incorporates natural rock outcrop, suggesting the builders worked with the local geology rather than moving earth alone. The ridge itself is described as short and fairly low, running northwest to southeast, which would have offered modest elevation without the commanding position associated with more overtly strategic sites. An entrance gap, about 2.5 metres wide, survives on the southeastern side and is considered likely to be original rather than a later break in the bank.