What survives is a cashel, a type of ringfort defined by a drystone wall rather than an earthen bank, and this one has not fared especially well against the centuries. Its roughly circular outline measures approximately 31 metres north to south and 28 metres east to west, and only a portion of the enclosing wall can still be traced, running from the south-west, around the north, and across to the east.

Cashels were built throughout Ireland during the early medieval period, typically between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and functioned as enclosed farmsteads or the seats of local farming families and minor lords. The drystone construction distinguishes them from the more common earthen ringforts found across the country, and they tend to cluster in areas where stone was readily available. What makes the Lavally example quietly telling is the layer of landscape history compressed into a small area: a modern field wall has been built directly over the ancient enclosing element, which is both the reason the site survives at all in outline and the reason so little of the original wall remains legible. The old boundary was simply absorbed into a new one, its stones repurposed or buried, its function as an enclosure replaced by a more recent agricultural boundary running along much the same line.