What you are seeing is the trace of an early medieval farmstead, most likely dating from somewhere between the sixth and twelfth centuries, when ringforts, known in Irish as raths when built from earth and banks rather than stone, were the dominant form of rural settlement across the country. Thousands survive in Ireland in varying states of preservation, and Ballyneety's example is neither dramatic nor ruinous. It sits quietly on a gentle south-east-facing slope, doing what old earthworks tend to do in agricultural land: enduring, just about, while the world reorganises itself around it.

The enclosure is roughly circular, measuring approximately 49 metres north to south and just under 49 metres east to west. A surrounding earthen bank still stands to an external height of around 2.45 metres along much of its circuit, with a shallow external fosse, the ditch dug outside the bank to reinforce the boundary, running from the north around to the east-south-east. The interior of the bank rises only about half a metre above the enclosed ground, which slopes gently downward toward the south-east. The east and south-eastern sections of the bank have been partially removed over time, leaving a scarped edge rather than a rounded profile. Whether that removal was deliberate agricultural clearance or something more gradual is not recorded. Along the southern and eastern arc of the bank, mature trees have taken hold, which is a common fate for ringfort banks: once the ground is left unploughed, scrub and then larger growth tend to follow. The site was compiled by Denis Power and uploaded to record in August 2011.

The ringfort sits within a small field, with a dry-stone boundary wall running around the outside of the enclosure from the south-south-west to the north-west. Two ruinous dry-stone walls abut the original bank at the north-east and east, forming a small paddock area in the north-east corner of the field. This layering of later agricultural infrastructure onto and against the earlier monument is typical of how ringforts have been absorbed into working farmland over centuries. The site is in pasture and remains under grass. Visitors approaching the area should bear in mind that this is private agricultural land, and access should not be assumed without permission. The earthworks are most legible in low winter light, when the slight relief of the bank and the scarped edges cast longer shadows and the shape of the enclosure reads more clearly from the surrounding ground.