Most raths, the circular earthen enclosures that served as enclosed farmsteads during the early medieval period in Ireland, present a fairly consistent perimeter. This one does not. Its roughly 28-metre circuit switches material as it goes: an earthen bank to the south and south-west, then a stone wall carrying the line around to the north-north-west, then a low scarp capped with stone wall completing the ring. The result reads less like a single act of construction and more like a structure that was repaired, adapted, and argued with over time.

Sitting atop a north-south ridge and now used as pasture, the enclosure has accumulated some additional complications. Large boulders have been dumped onto the wall, most likely a consequence of agricultural land reclamation at some point, when clearing fields meant pushing stone onto whatever boundary was already there. Inside, the ground slopes gently down toward the east-south-east, and a flat slab measuring roughly one metre by one metre lies in the northern half, accompanied by smaller stones. This grouping may mark the entrance to a souterrain, an underground passage or chamber typically cut from stone and used in early medieval Ireland for storage or as a place of refuge. The two standing stones that once occupied ground roughly fifty metres to the west and south of the enclosure add a further layer of interest. Those stones are recorded as formerly standing, meaning they are no longer upright, but their proximity to the rath suggests this small ridge at Carrigacooleen once held a denser concentration of monuments than what survives today.