This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the type of enclosed farmstead that was built across Ireland in enormous numbers during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Thousands survive in various states of preservation, but what gives the Ballinruane example a particular quiet interest is the detail still visible in its construction. The enclosing bank measures twenty-seven metres in diameter, with a height of around 1.35 metres on the outer face and 0.7 metres on the interior, and it retains stone facing on its outer side. That facing closely resembles the stonework of a field boundary wall that once abutted the outer edge of the fosse, the defensive ditch that runs around the bank's exterior. The relationship between the ringfort and the later field boundary suggests the site remained in active use as a landscape feature long after anyone lived within it.

The record was compiled by Denis Power and uploaded to the Archaeological Survey of Ireland in August 2011, drawing in part on an aerial photograph taken in October 2002. That photograph revealed something telling: the boundary wall which had abutted the eastern edge of the fosse had already been removed by that point, an alteration that erased a detail connecting the ancient earthwork to the post-medieval farmed landscape around it. The fosse itself survives, measuring roughly 0.8 metres deep and 1.2 metres wide, though like the bank it has suffered gradual erosion from cattle moving between the field and the interior. A slight depression on the northern side of the enclosed area is thought to be the remains of a small quarry, probably the source of material used in the bank's construction or maintenance rather than anything more dramatic.

The site sits in pasture on a gently south-facing slope, and the bank is now largely obscured by trees and scrub growth, which means it reads more clearly from a distance, or from above, than from the immediate ground level. The interior is level and grassed, though partly shaded by the same tree cover encroaching on the bank. Anyone approaching on foot should be aware that the site is on agricultural land, and that the cattle which graze there have done measurable damage to the earthwork over time. The stone facing, where it remains visible through the vegetation on the outer bank, is the most structurally distinctive feature to look for.