A rath, as these circular or subcircular enclosures are properly known, was typically a raised earthen bank enclosing a farmstead during the early medieval period, roughly from the fifth to the twelfth century. Thousands survive across Ireland in varying states of preservation, but the one at Gortavaura sits at the less legible end of that spectrum.

Measuring approximately 43.5 metres north to south and 40.5 metres east to west, the enclosure is subcircular in plan. What defined it originally was an earthen bank, but that bank has been largely obscured along its south-south-east to south-west arc by a later field boundary built directly on top of it, making it difficult to read where the ancient structure ends and the more recent agricultural landscape begins. A gap in the bank on the north-east side may be the original entrance, the point through which people and livestock once passed into the enclosed settlement, though the poor state of preservation makes any firm conclusion difficult.