A ringfort, or rath, is a type of enclosed farmstead typical of early medieval Ireland, usually defined by one or more circular earthen banks thrown up around a domestic settlement. Here in Ballyverassa, the enclosure originally measured roughly 33 metres across, which places it within the common range for such sites. What makes this particular example quietly interesting is not what remains but what was done to it, and when.

Comparison of Ordnance Survey six-inch maps suggests the monument was partially levelled sometime between 1840 and 1907. The southern and western quadrants have been almost entirely flattened, surviving only as a low scarp along the ground, with a slight external dip in the west that may point to the former presence of a fosse, the external ditch that often accompanied the bank of a rath. The north-eastern quadrant, however, retains a substantial earthen and gravel bank with a base width of around 4.3 metres and a crest width of just under 1.5 metres. The exterior face drops steeply while the interior side falls away more gradually, a characteristic profile for this class of monument. A road running north-west to south-east along the outer base of the bank in the south-east has actually added to the bank's height in that sector, an accidental form of preservation that sits oddly alongside the deliberate clearance elsewhere. The surviving bank is now heavily overgrown, with considerable dead wood piled against its inner face.