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, though many have been ploughed out or built over. This one at Ballyashea has kept its shape with reasonable fidelity, and the fact that it remains in grassland rather than under tillage has helped preserve what is there to be read.

The enclosure is oval, measuring approximately 53.5 metres north to south and 47 metres east to west, with an earthen bank that stands 1.1 metres high on the interior and 1.95 metres on the exterior. Running around the outside, from the south-west to the north-north-east, is a fosse, the technical term for a defensive ditch, here about 2.1 metres wide and 0.45 metres deep. The south-west arc of the bank is the best-preserved section, and here the stonework is still visible, the remains of a stone facing running from the north-north-east around to the south-east. A field boundary, 1.45 metres high, follows the base of the fosse along its western and northern edge, suggesting that later agricultural activity has made use of the old line of the enclosure without entirely dismantling it. The interior slopes very gently downward toward the north and is currently covered with briars and ferns. A dry-stone field wall meets the enclosure at the south-east. The site was compiled by Denis Power and aerial photographs were taken in March 2006 as part of the Archaeological Survey of Ireland record.

For anyone approaching from the road, the site sits in working farmland, so access would require local enquiry and appropriate permission. The bank is most legible from the south-west, where the stone facing survives and the profile of earthwork and fosse is clearest. The interior vegetation, dense with briars, makes it difficult to walk through, but the outer circuit can tell you a good deal about the original construction. The aerial photographs from 2006, available through the ASI records, give a useful overhead sense of the oval plan that is harder to appreciate at ground level.