It is, in fact, a rath, the most common monument type in the Irish landscape, an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically ringed by one or more earthen banks and ditches. Most were built and occupied between roughly the fifth and twelfth centuries, though many continued in use, or simply in the imagination, long after that.

This particular example is modest even by the standards of the type, measuring around twenty-one metres in diameter. The defining bank survives, though in poor condition, and on its north-western arc there are traces of an inner stone revetment, a facing of stacked stone that would once have held the earthwork together and given it a more solid, structured appearance. The gaps that now interrupt the bank at various points appear to be the result of later agricultural interference rather than ancient collapse, the land having been farmed continuously around and over the monument for centuries. A field wall running roughly north to south cuts across the western side of the rath, a small but telling detail: at some point, whoever was dividing up this ground either did not know what the feature was, or simply had more pressing concerns than preserving it.