It is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, which was the standard farmstead type of early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Most people driving through the Cork countryside pass several without realising what they are looking at, and this one is no exception to that quiet anonymity.

The enclosure is nearly circular, measuring 19.2 metres north to south and 19.9 metres east to west, and is bounded by an earthen bank that still stands 1.8 metres high in places. Parts of that bank retain their stone facing, which suggests it was originally a more carefully finished structure than the grassed-over mound visible today. Outside, to the south-west, a shallow fosse, or ditch, runs along the perimeter; such ditches were dug to provide the material for the bank and to add a further obstacle at the boundary. One of the more thoughtful details is the way the inner face of the bank has been kept low along the western to east-north-east arc, while the interior ground level has been built up to compensate for the natural fall of the hillside. The effect is a levelled living space inside, even though the surrounding slope does not cooperate. A gap of 1.4 metres in the southern bank marks what was almost certainly the original entrance, narrow enough to be easily controlled.