A rath, to use the Irish term, is an early medieval earthwork enclosure, typically circular, built to demarcate a farmstead and provide a degree of defensive privacy. This one was probably circular or broadly oval when first constructed, but what survives is penannular, a crescent or horseshoe shape, the gap facing east. The remaining bank is substantial: roughly 6.7 metres wide at its base, and rising to 2 metres on its outer face at the south-west. That the gap exists at all is not age alone at work; the north-east to south-east section of the enclosure was removed, and part of the interior disturbed, at some point in the past.

The site sits against the south-eastern slope of a low rise, with a natural water-filled hollow lying just to the north-east, the kind of topographical arrangement that would have made a farmstead location sensible in any century. Where the eastern bank once stood, the interior of the rath now merges into a flat-topped, roughly rectangular area extending outward to the east-south-east, measuring approximately 25 metres by 14 metres. This platform forms part of the same natural rise on which the rath is built, and its edges have been absorbed into field boundaries on the east and south, with a natural scarp about 1.7 metres high marking its northern edge. It is conceivable that this area functioned as an annex to the rath, a secondary enclosure for animals or storage, which would not be unusual for the type. However, much of the shaping and modification visible today appears to belong to more recent agricultural activity rather than to the original construction. A separate enclosure lies roughly 100 metres to the south-west, suggesting that this corner of Ballymoyock was once a more organised and occupied landscape than the quiet pasture it presents today.