A rath, as this type of ringfort is commonly called, was typically a farmstead of the early historic period in Ireland, where a family would have lived within a banked enclosure that offered both practical protection and a clear statement of social standing. This one at Ballylinane is a fairly typical example in its form, if not entirely in its condition.

The site survives as a circular area roughly 37 metres in diameter, enclosed by an earthen bank that stands about 0.95 metres high on the interior but rises to a considerably more imposing 2.3 metres when measured from the outside. That difference is explained by the presence of an external fosse, the surrounding ditch from which the bank material was originally dug, which here runs to a depth of 2.3 metres and a width of 6 metres. Together, bank and fosse would have presented a meaningful obstacle to livestock and opportunists alike. A gap of around 6 metres in the bank at the south-southwest appears to be a relatively recent break rather than the original entrance. The record was compiled by Denis Power and uploaded in August 2011, at which point the interior had recently been cleared of scrub overgrowth, with the cut material piled along sections of the bank.

The site sits in level dry pasture, which makes it accessible on foot without the boggy ground that complicates visits to many similar monuments elsewhere in the county. A farm trackway runs along the outer edge of the fosse in a roughly north-northeast to south-southwest direction, which gives a useful sense of the monument's scale from ground level before you approach the bank itself. The piled scrub noted at the time of recording may or may not still be present, but the earthworks themselves are clear enough to read without difficulty. The exterior height of the bank, viewed from the fosse line, gives the strongest impression of how the original structure would have dominated its immediate surroundings.