A ringfort, or rath, was a roughly circular enclosure, typically defined by an earthen bank and outer ditch, that served as a farmstead and homestead during the early medieval period in Ireland, roughly from the fifth to the twelfth century. At Gortnaglogh, the enclosure measures approximately 39 metres east to west and 38 metres north to south, making it a fairly typical example in terms of scale, though what remains is poorly preserved and uneven in character.

The enclosure was not formed in a single consistent way around its entire circuit. From the north-north-west around through the east to the south-east, a bank and an external fosse, the ditch running outside the bank, still define the edge of the interior. Elsewhere, the natural or quarried-out scarp of the hummock itself appears to have been used as the enclosing element, saving the effort of constructing an earthen bank where the ground already provided a degree of elevation and separation. A possible outer bank, suggesting the site may once have had a more elaborate double-enclosure arrangement, survives along part of the northern and eastern arc. A later field bank has been laid directly over the original enclosing elements from the south-east around through the south to the south-west, which accounts for some of the difficulty in reading the site today. Roughly 350 metres to the south-south-east lies a second ringfort, a reminder that these sites rarely sat in isolation; clusters of such enclosures across a townland often reflect the agricultural and social organisation of extended kin groups sharing a landscape over generations.