What makes it worth pausing over is the way it has been absorbed into the working farmland around it: the earthen bank, which rises to just over a metre in height, has been incorporated into the field fence system along its southern and north-western arc, meaning the ancient boundary and the modern one have become, in places, the same boundary. The interior, rather than lying open, is planted with coniferous trees, giving the enclosure a dense, deliberate presence that sets it apart from the surrounding pasture.

This site is a rath, the Irish term for a roughly circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, typically dating from the early medieval period, between roughly the fifth and twelfth centuries. Raths were the farmsteads of their time, the enclosed spaces where families lived, kept livestock, and managed the land around them. The one at Ballyharoon measures approximately 35.5 metres east to west and 34 metres north to south, making it a reasonably substantial example. The bank itself is faced with stone externally along its south-western side, a detail that suggests some care in its original construction and that has helped it survive in readable condition. Stone-facing of this kind was not universal among raths, and its presence here adds a small layer of distinction to what might otherwise appear, from a distance, to be an unremarkable field boundary.