The 1924 Ordnance Survey six-inch sheet records it plainly enough, a circular embanked enclosure of roughly thirty metres in diameter, but visiting the site now means working against dense overgrowth that has gradually swallowed much of what was once visible to the eye.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when defined primarily by earthen banks and ditches, were the predominant form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from around the sixth to the twelfth centuries. They served as enclosed farmsteads, the encircling bank and accompanying fosse offering both a degree of security and a marker of social status for the family within. At Ballylanigan, a survey compiled by Denis Power found that the enclosing element, though heavily obscured, could still be partially accessed. What survives includes a scarped edge approximately one metre high and two metres wide, with a slight inner lip of around fifteen centimetres on the interior face. Outside the scarp, a fosse, essentially a defensive ditch, runs to about half a metre deep and three metres wide. The northeast of the circuit shows a clear gap across the scarp, most likely the original entrance, and projecting outward from that point is a linear depression that extends beyond the outer edge of the fosse. This feature, which may represent a causeway or approach track, is unfortunately masked by the same overgrowth that obscures much of the rest of the monument.

The site sits in open, flat pasture, which ought to make it straightforward to locate, though the vegetation cover means that ground-level inspection is considerably more difficult than the landscape setting would suggest. Visiting in late winter or early spring, when growth has died back, gives the best chance of reading the earthwork. The northeast gap is perhaps the most telling detail to look for, since it marks what was almost certainly the point of entry into the enclosure and gives a sense of how the original occupants oriented themselves within the surrounding countryside. Those with an eye for subtle changes in ground level will find more here than a casual glance might suggest.