Most ringforts, the circular or roughly oval enclosures built across Ireland from the early medieval period onwards as defended farmsteads, resolve themselves into fairly predictable forms. The rath at Ballynacloghy departs from that convention, stretching approximately 26.8 metres east to west and 22.7 metres north to south, with its long axis running northwest to southeast across a gentle rise in pastureland above Lackanaloy Creek.

The earthen bank that defines the enclosure may once have been faced with stone on its inner side, a detail noted by McCaffrey in 1952, suggesting the original construction was rather more deliberate than the grassed-over mound visible today. Inside the northwest quadrant, possible house foundations survive, measuring roughly 11 metres by 5 metres, giving some sense of the domestic scale of the place when it was occupied. What makes the site particularly interesting, however, is what extends beyond the main enclosure. A raised trackway, around 30 metres long, runs outward from the northwest and leads to a separate subcircular enclosure nearby. Raised trackways of this kind, essentially causeways built up above the surrounding ground, are not unknown in Irish archaeological contexts but their presence here implies a deliberate and maintained connection between two distinct spaces, possibly a satellite enclosure used for livestock or storage. Holt noted the site as early as 1912, so it has been on the archaeological record for well over a century without attracting a great deal of wider notice.