What remains is a roughly circular enclosure, measuring about 32 metres north to south and 35 metres east to west, defined by a low rise no more than 0.4 metres in height, with a shallow depression running around its outer edge. Stones are scattered across the level interior. It is, by any measure, subtle; the kind of place that rewards attention rather than announces itself.

This is a rath, the Irish term for a type of ringfort, the most common class of early medieval monument in Ireland. Ringforts were typically the enclosed farmsteads of prosperous families, built roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. The enclosing bank and external ditch, even in their current reduced state at Ballyda, follow a pattern found in thousands of similar sites across the country. The interior would originally have sheltered timber or wattle structures, perhaps a dwelling house, animal pens, and storage buildings, all enclosed within an earthen bank that served as much as a statement of social standing as a practical defence. At Ballyda, the bank has settled considerably over the centuries, and the surrounding ditch has filled and softened into the gentle hollow that traces the perimeter today. The scattered stones in the interior may be the remnants of later activity, or simply material that has worked its way to the surface over a very long period.