Ringforts, known in Irish as raths, were enclosed farmsteads typically built during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and they survive in their thousands across the Irish countryside. This one at Ballylahiff is unusual not just for being bivallate, meaning it has two concentric earthen banks rather than the single bank more commonly found, but for the degree to which the modern field system has grown around and into it, making the boundaries of past and present genuinely difficult to disentangle.

The site was surveyed and compiled by Denis Power, with notes uploaded in August 2011. The roughly circular enclosure measures approximately 39 metres on the northeast to southwest axis and 43 metres on the northwest to southeast, with a fosse, an earthen or rock-cut ditch, running between the two banks. That fosse is about 4.6 metres wide and is most clearly defined between the north-northwest and east-northeast. The inner bank stands to an internal height of around 1.2 metres and an external height of 1.9 metres; the outer bank, by contrast, survives only on the northern arc and is considerably less pronounced. A gap of roughly 3.4 metres in the inner bank at the south-southwest likely marks the original entrance. Both banks have been incorporated into later linear field boundaries, a common fate for such monuments in agricultural areas, and dense overgrowth now covers much of the enclosing earthworks.

Access to this kind of site in waterlogged pasture requires some preparation. The interior slopes gently down to the northeast and is described as waterlogged, so boots are the obvious minimum. The earthworks are most legible on the northern and northwestern arc, where the fosse and outer bank are best preserved, so approaching from that side gives the clearest sense of the original double-bank arrangement. The dense overgrowth covering much of the structure means the monument reads better in late autumn or winter, when vegetation has died back and the profile of the banks becomes more visible against the slope.