The irony is difficult to miss: an attempt to reshape or perhaps obscure the landscape has ended up drawing a near-perfect circle around the very thing it disturbed.

The site is a rath, a type of enclosed farmstead built during the early medieval period in Ireland, typically defined by one or more earthen banks and a surrounding ditch known as a fosse. This particular example is subcircular in plan, measuring roughly forty metres on its longer axis, and sits in fair condition despite what was done to it. The bank, which would originally have formed a continuous raised ring around the interior, was reputedly levelled during the nineteenth century by the landlord of the time, the occasion being the planting of the beech trees that now encircle the monument. The fosse, the external ditch cut to provide material for the bank and to define the enclosure boundary, survives more completely; it remains visible across much of the circuit, from the west-northwest around to the northeast, and again from the east-southeast to the south-southwest. It is the fosse, then, rather than any upstanding bank, that now carries most of the archaeological evidence for the original form of the enclosure.

The beech trees planted at the landlord's instruction have long since grown into substantial specimens, and they give the site an atmosphere quite different from the open pasture surrounding it. Visitors approaching across the fields will notice the canopy before they notice any earthwork. Once inside the tree line, the ground itself tells the story, with the dip of the fosse still legible underfoot even where the bank above it was removed.