What survives sits on the outer edge of a meander scarp, the steep river-cut bank on the western side of the Finglas near Baslickane bridge in South Kerry, and the eastern portion of the enclosure has long since eroded away into the water below. What began as a complete circular enclosure, clearly recorded on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map, is now a U-shape, open to the east where the ground simply ceased to exist.

A rath, or univallate ringfort, is a type of enclosed farmstead common across early medieval Ireland, typically defined by a single earthen bank and outer ditch. The example at Baslickane is a reasonably large one, with an original internal diameter of around 33 metres. Despite the ongoing loss to the river, the surviving western and southern sections are well preserved. At the south, the bank rises 1.7 metres above the interior but a striking 6 metres when measured from the outside, a difference explained by the natural fall of the ground, and the external fosse, the defensive ditch running around the outside of the bank, is still 4.5 metres wide and nearly 2 metres deep. A modern stone wall has been built along the top of the surviving earthen bank, which is a common enough fate for ancient earthworks pressed into service as field boundaries. The southern entrance gap, 3.5 metres wide, is still legible. Inside, the ground is densely overgrown, and a scattering of edge-set slabs offers no clear pattern or obvious interpretation.

The southern and western faces of the bank are the most rewarding to examine, where the scale of the original construction becomes apparent from the outside looking up. The silted northern fosse and the abrupt eastern void where the river has taken its share are equally telling in their own way, a slow record of what early medieval earthworks are up against when water is nearby.