The rise at its edge reaches only 0.6 metres, and the shallow depression of an outer fosse, a defensive ditch, dips just 0.8 metres below grade. To most eyes it reads as a gentle undulation in farmland. To an archaeologist, it is the flattened ghost of a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead that was the dominant form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries.

The site measures approximately 43 metres north to south and 37.5 metres east to west, which places it at a respectable size for its type. One of the more telling details is that its interior was deliberately scarped, that is, the ground was cut back and levelled on the southern side to compensate for the natural fall of the hillslope. This kind of earthwork speaks to deliberate construction and some investment of effort by whoever built and occupied the enclosure. Beneath the surface there may be more: a possible souterrain has been identified within the interior. A souterrain is an underground stone-lined passage or chamber associated with ringforts, used variously for storage, refuge, or ventilation. Excavations in 2002, reported in that year's Excavations bulletin, shed further light on the site. Notably, a second ringfort survives roughly 90 metres to the northeast, a proximity that raises quiet questions about whether two households once farmed this same stretch of Cork hillside in close company.