The earthwork sits on a natural hillock on a north-facing slope in an upland part of County Tipperary, and the people who built it made deliberate use of the landscape, cutting a fosse, essentially a defensive ditch, around the base of the hill and throwing up a slight outer bank beyond it. At roughly 42 metres across its northwest to southeast axis, the enclosure would have been a substantial presence in its time. Today, that fosse is five metres wide but only one to two metres deep on the interior, and even shallower on the outside, the outer bank reduced to little more than a trace. The site has probably been further worn down by modern land improvement schemes.

Ringforts of this type, known in Irish as raths, were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from around the sixth to the twelfth century. They were enclosed farmsteads rather than military fortifications in any strict sense, the bank and ditch marking a boundary as much as a defence, keeping livestock in and wolves or raiders out. What sets the Ballycahane example apart slightly is its relationship with a second nearby enclosure recorded a short distance to the north. Paired or clustered ringforts are not unknown in Ireland, and their proximity here suggests this upland area was more actively farmed and occupied in the early medieval period than its current remoteness might imply. The clearest evidence of the site's original form now comes not from walking the ground but from aerial photography, which reveals the outline of the enclosure, its fosse and bank legible from above in a way they no longer are at eye level.