It is a rath, the commonest type of Irish ringfort, and the kind of monument that once dotted the Irish countryside in its tens of thousands, serving as a farmstead enclosure during the early medieval period, roughly from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. The fact that so many have survived at all, beneath pasture and ploughland, is largely down to the old folk belief that disturbing a fairy fort brings misfortune.

This particular example measures approximately thirty metres across on its longest axis, running from east-northeast to west-southwest, and about twenty-eight metres on its shorter axis, giving it a slightly subcircular rather than perfectly round plan. The defining feature is the earthen bank itself, which remains in fair condition. On the northwestern and north-northwestern sides, faint traces of what may be an external fosse are still visible; a fosse is simply a ditch dug alongside a bank, the excavated material typically thrown inward to heighten the bank above it. A gap of about four metres on the eastern side may represent the original entrance, though gaps of this kind can also result from later agricultural activity, so it is difficult to be certain. The monument is recorded in the Archaeological Inventory of County Galway, Volume II, compiled by Olive Alcock, Kathy de hÓra, and Paul Gosling and published in 1999.