What survives is a semi-circular arc of earthen bank, stretching 33.2 metres on a northeast-to-southwest alignment, accompanied by a shallow external fosse, the ditch dug around the outside of the enclosure to reinforce its defensive profile. A field fence cuts across the southeast side, and beyond it the ground gives nothing away; whatever completed the circuit has been absorbed into the working farmland, leaving the fort as a kind of parenthesis, open on one side.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when they are earthen, are among the most common archaeological monument types in Ireland, built predominantly during the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries, as enclosed farmsteads for a single family or small community. This one, set on a north-facing slope in pasture at Ballyfoyle in County Cork, retains enough of its original form to make its layout reasonably clear. The bank stands to about 0.8 metres in height, modest but still coherent after perhaps a thousand years of agricultural use. What makes the site particularly interesting is the presence of an annexe adjoining the arc to the north-northeast. This raised, roughly oval feature, measuring approximately 40 metres north to south and 28 metres east to west, is defined by a scarp reaching up to 2 metres at its highest point, and its interior slopes downward to the north. Annexes of this kind are sometimes interpreted as enclosures for livestock, or as a secondary domestic or working space associated with the main enclosure, though their precise function varies from site to site.

The fort sits in ordinary farmland, the kind of place that rewards a slow look rather than a quick glance from a gate. The surviving bank and the more pronounced scarp of the annexe are the details worth seeking out, particularly the way the ground drops away inside the annexe toward the north, giving a sense of its original topography even where the enclosing earthwork has been reduced.