Yet the slight rise and fall of the ground here is the remains of an earthen enclosure, a fort of the kind built across Ireland during the early medieval period and used for centuries as farmstead, refuge, or seat of local authority depending on who held it and when.

The enclosure measures approximately 36.8 metres on its longer axis and 30.6 metres across, making it a modest but respectable size. An earthen bank, around four metres wide, still defines the northwestern and northeastern arc of the circuit. On the interior it rises about a metre; on the exterior, a metre and a half. To the east, the bank has been worn down to a simple scarp, the ground just dropping away rather than mounding up. The original entrance survives at the south-southeast, the most common orientation for this type of monument in Ireland, likely chosen for its aspect and its relationship to the approach from lower ground. The position at the end of a drumlin ridge, one of the elongated hills shaped by glacial deposits that dominate the Monaghan landscape, would have offered natural elevation and visibility without requiring a hilltop site.