It is, in fact, a rath, the most common type of early medieval enclosure in Ireland, built as a farmstead and seat of a family of some local standing, probably between the sixth and tenth centuries. The fact that thousands of these survive across the Irish countryside, many still unexcavated, does nothing to diminish the oddity of encountering one in a working field, quietly holding its shape after more than a millennium.

The enclosure is roughly circular, measuring approximately forty metres north to south and just over forty-one metres east to west. It is defined by an earthen bank rising to about 1.15 metres on the eastern to northern arc, with a slighter scarp of around half a metre continuing around the northern to eastern side. A rath of this kind would originally have enclosed a homestead, its bank and any accompanying ditch serving as a boundary marker and a modest defensive barrier against livestock theft or opportunistic raiding. The variation in height between the two sections of bank, with one side more pronounced than the other, is not unusual; earthworks weather and settle unevenly over centuries, and agricultural activity can reduce or obscure original features over time.