It is easy to miss: a gently elevated oval, roughly 41 metres from north to south and 31 metres from east to west, its edges defined by a scarp less than a metre high and a shallow outer ditch, or fosse, that has been reduced over the centuries to little more than a faint depression. Scrub has colonised it thoroughly, and wherever the original entrance once stood, the ground gives nothing away.

This kind of earthwork is known as a rath, a ringfort formed from earth and sod rather than stone, and such sites are among the most common archaeological monuments in Ireland. They were built primarily during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and served as enclosed farmsteads for families of some local standing. The enclosing bank and fosse were less about military defence and more about marking territory, keeping livestock in, and signalling a degree of social status to neighbours. Thousands survive across the country in varying states of preservation, and while the Ballintober example is modest in scale, its measurements place it comfortably within the typical range. The fosse here is particularly slight, only around ten to twenty centimetres deep and two and a half to nearly four metres wide, suggesting either that it was never especially substantial or that centuries of agricultural activity in the surrounding pasture have taken their toll.