The raised area measures roughly 34 metres across from east to west, sitting on the eastern slope of a gentle rise, and it lifts only fractionally above the surrounding field level. Easy to walk past without a second glance, it is the kind of feature that rewards those who know what they are looking for.

The site is classified as a possible ringfort, the qualification reflecting how little of the original structure now protrudes above ground. Ringforts, known in Irish as raths or cashels depending on whether they were built from earthen banks or stone, were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from around the fifth to the twelfth centuries. They served as enclosed farmsteads, the enclosing bank providing a degree of security for a family and their livestock. At Balloor, even that defining bank has been reduced to the gentlest of suggestions, worn down over centuries of agriculture until the circular plan survives more as a slight topographical memory than as any dramatic earthwork. The site was documented in a 1994 archaeological survey of the Ballinrobe district, which covers the broader landscape around Lough Mask and Lough Carra, a region with a notably dense concentration of early historic and prehistoric remains.