This is a rath, the more common term for a ringfort, which was a type of enclosed farmstead typical of early medieval Ireland, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries. Most were home to a single farming family, defended less against armies than against opportunistic cattle raiders. What sets this particular example apart is not any dramatic survival but a quiet doubling of function: tucked into its south-western quarter is a children's burial ground, a cillín, where unbaptised infants were interred in unconsecrated ground, outside the boundaries of formal churchyards.

The earthwork itself is substantial. The circular raised area measures 43 metres north to south and 42 metres east to west, enclosed from the north-east around to the north-west by a bank of earth and stone standing 1.1 metres high. The north-west to north-east arc has been levelled, and a stone field fence now marks that boundary, perhaps following the original line of the enclosure or perhaps simply making use of convenient ground. The dimensions place it firmly within the standard range for a single-family rath. The adjacent cillín is a separate monument in its own right, though the choice of an already-liminal site, an ancient enclosure set apart from ordinary farmland, for the burial of children who occupied their own kind of in-between status is a pattern found elsewhere in Ireland and carries its own quiet logic.